Barking

A tiny Yorkshire Terrier just walked by the house and taking an aggressive posture, began to bark at our 120 lb. Chocolate Lab. It was as if the dog was yelling, "Why don't you get off of your lazy butt and get out on a walk with me?" It was kind of humorous. Kona (our Lab) just barked back, "I'd love to, but I'm tied to this fence."

Sometimes I feel like this little dog. I'd love to see the church free from restrictions and out enjoying the neighborhood, but the church seems to just call back, "We'd like to, but we have so much keeping us tied here to do our thing, the same thing we have done as long as we can remember."

At this point, I have at least two options. My first option would be to run off, ignoring the church's stuck state (being tied to programs and traditions, not making inroads with the Gospel into the culture) and perhaps ridicule her in the neighborhood. I could simply dismiss her as irrelevant and out of touch and go do my own thing. But my reading of Scripture keeps this from happening. Paul reminds us that "as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, ESPECIALLY to those who are of the household of faith" (Gal. 6:10). It would be short-sighted and selfish of me not to engage the established ministries and invite them to join us on mission.

Another option would be to stop everything, sit down and just bark at the church. I could make much noise about how stuck she is and how tied to programs and traditions the institution actually is. This is unprofitable because it limits our calling and mission. God has placed us here to join the Spirit in calling out a community of people who challenge one another to love Jesus and other people with the goal of transforming the values of the city so that they look more like God's values.

So we live in this tension of joining with other congregations and keeping our distance because we are on mission. Here's what it looks like in real life:

We had really cool neighbors over for dessert the other night. We talked about family, housing, neighborliness, past shame and regret and religion. These folks have a wealth of life experience for us to learn from and are, to put it simply, great, honest people.

One thing that stung was their experience with the Institutional model of the church. They had both been shunned, belittled, and clearly unwelcomed by a group of people in the name of Jesus. We have to live in the tension of writing these Christians off as being unloving and really not representing God well to keep that sort of image of Jesus at a distance and relating to these Christians because they do name the name of Christ.

If love "is patient and kind...does not envy or boast...is not arrogant or rude...does not insist on its own way...is not irritable or resentful...does not rejoice at wrongdoing...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things," (I Cor. 13:4-6) then I keep my mouth shut to my neighbors and proactively, with much prayer and patience ask God to use me to show them a better way. We love and accept them and do it all, boldly in the name of Jesus. We learn from them and listen (really listen) to their struggles and heartaches. We offer hope and the forgiveness of sins and we pray that they would see Jesus and fall in love with Him, because it's really all about Him anyway. It's not about our way of doing mission.