Remember how I wrote a blog about not going to church and it blew up? It took me quite by surprise. It resonated with most people; others thought I was being prideful. Maybe I was, I won’t deny that possibility.
I’ve been waiting for the right moment to write a follow up to this controversial blog about a missionary who doesn’t go to church. And last night it may have come.
A friend asked me what I would say that my ‘calling’ is in a few sentences. And whenever I think about my calling, I think about what aspect of the world I am not okay with. And the consistent theme that I have found to not be okay with is for Christians to live like slaves or prisoners when Christ died to set them completely and fully free. It’s not okay for sons and daughters to live as orphans, and for the church to continue to believe that they are unworthy beggars in the kingdom of God rather than a redeemed people who have received an inheritance of sonship, royalty and dominion so that they might change the world.
My friend so kindly and bluntly responded, “It’s interesting that you are called to the church and yet you don’t go to church.”
Ha! All I could do was laugh. She is right.
It’s not hard to teach someone in a remote village a brand new concept about being loved and valued. It’s a little bit more of a challenge to show someone in the American church that this God living in the clouds that they have heard about their entire lives actually loves them without expecting anything in return…that he just loves them because he loves them. Because that’s who he is in his very nature.
But as I have heard more often than not recently, easier is not better.
So my conclusion is this: if I am not okay with this (you fill in the blank)…then what am I going to do about it? For me, I think the answer is pure, unconditional relationship without agenda. Loving the church with the love that shakes down walls and displaces fear. And stepping into really uncomfortable, undesirable places for the sake of freedom. Even if that place is a really boring church service.
As the Persian poet, Hafiz writes…may I not be the small man building cages, but may I be a mature woman of sound judgment dropping keys of freedom all throughout the night for those who are daily living in bondage.
“The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows
While the sage
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.”