Bother: Intransitive verb. 1 : to become concerned
I grew up as country boy in rural NC. To borrow the southern colloquialism there were “sure ‘nuffs” in my younger life. First, I lived with both my parents who loved me. Second, I had a Grandma and Grandpa who lived next door with a home that was always open and welcoming. Third, we all went to church on Sunday. In the last few years I have been intensely thinking about this strange thing called church and why it has been such a large part of my life. Many people wonder why bother with it in the first place.
I’ve been in some kind of church for nearly 30 years of my existence counting the time in my mother’s womb. Nearly one-third of a century has been spent in a Sunday School room, in a pew made of wood, plastic or plush seating as either a child, young adult, or adult. I have participated as a attendee, alter boy, member, or serving in some staff role.
I have attended nearly every type of service imaginable. I have been to southern, northern, white, black, heterosexual, homosexual, closed and convicting, open and affirming, Armenian, Reformed, conservative, moderate, liberal, traditional, liturgical, contemporary, charismatic, house churches, small churches, large churches, mega-churches, Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Non-denominational, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and a few that just would not fit any label I could figure out to put on them. I think this qualifies me as a person that can say I may know a few things about churches in general and the Church in America as a whole.
In February of 2008, I became a father for the first time of a beautiful baby girl and in that same month lost my last two living grandparents. It is the irony of life to gain one joy and loose another. Why do I bother with such a strange thing as the Church when life is ever changing around me? There are two reasons.
The first is a very selfish one. It was through the Church that I met the person of Jesus who is the Christ. The Church showed me God in a splendidly incarnate carpenter turned preacher named Jesus. This man who according to the scriptures died and was resurrected changed my life. I simply love him. He is the one who when described by one of his followers and disciples so eloquently said of his relation to Jesus as he is “My Lord and my God.”
The second reason is I believe the blood of Christ runs through the veins of the church. The church is the organism Jesus designed to introduce people to who he is and what he does and He commands me to be a part of it. I am not always happy about that but I have found it is much wiser to obey him than not. The Church in our day is both an organism and organization. It is a living, breathing organism in that it is the body of Christ on Earth. It is an organization in that it has a variety of both splendid and splintered groups with their own agendas and missions. It is much like a human body that has living and dead cells in it. The question often by those within it and outside of it is “does it have more living or dead cells in its body?” Jesus came to this world to save humanity. The scriptures teach that Christ blood is what cures us of our evil and makes us right with God and makes it even possible to be made right with our fellow man. Every person myself included that has or will enter the Church is like a contaminant in the bloodstream that slowly would kill the Church body if Christ did not intervene. Yet the blood of Christ is ever working to transform and purge the Church body of all that is not good and ultimately in it all there is God making all things new. His blood has been transfused into the Church, and it acts as a purifying agent to every part of the body and flushes away all that is not healthy. Transfusions sometime take a great deal of time to make a dying body healthy again and sometimes the blood is introduced slowly not to kill the body. This is why the truest churches under heaven often look so sick.
So why do I bother with the Church? Well, because Christ still does. In Christ, I have met God and through his body the Church I have journeyed and struggled with both God and man. I have struggled with my own desires and God’s desire for me. I have kicked addictions, fought and fight my daily struggles, and have met and continue to meet challenges with the One being who can completely sympathize and relate to me as he makes me whole. I stay with the Church because it alone is the people of God. The Church is the definable place where Christ has chosen to represent what he is doing on Earth. The Church is where God can be found. The Church is where he is saving individuals and families by inviting them to come and experience who He is and what He is doing on Earth in a strange people and place called the Church. He is always expanding the Church.
A former president of my Alma Mater of mine Paige Patterson once said “God save the elect!… and elect some more.” Not a bad prayer. May God God expand his son kingdom by increasing the number of people in what God bothers to call people to come and be part of.
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