Jesus and the Church

Jan Owen zeroed in on a point in her comment below under "Catalyst '07 - Day One" that I thought warranted its own post. Some of you may not make it through the whole post below due to its length (it doesn't have any of the illustrations or humor I typically like to attempt). I'm intentionally going to paint with very broad strokes.

I'm not particularly a big Rick Warren fan, but he said something on Thursday at the conference that was worth noting. The Bible states that the Church is the bride of Christ. We're also described as the body of Christ. Rick Warren noted that people sometimes say (and I've experienced this first-hand), "I like Jesus but I can't stand the Church."

What if someone came up to you and said, "I really like you, but I can't stand your wife (or husband)"? Or what if they said, "Your face is okay, but I hate your body." Either thing would probably be offensive. (One would be more offensive than the other depending upon who you talk to.) Warren's point was that this kind of sentiment has got to be offensive to Jesus Christ. Put in the above terms, it seems like a pretty obvious thing.

I believe that some people use that statement simply as an excuse to get people to leave them alone about God or the church. However, I also believe that some people really want to know the Truth, and sometimes our one-day-a-week holiness can be a show-stopper for them.

I've been searching the Scriptures and trying to get to the bottom of what seems to be a "younger generation vs. older generation" battle within the church. I do see some truth in the statement of the younger generation that the church has lost its focus on why it does what it does (and has in many ways become entangled within an internally-focused mindset). However, I also see that this statement is made, most of the time, not out of a love for Christ, but out of an angry, rebellious attitude toward tradition and the Church.

This generation isn't the first that has experienced this sort of disconnection between young and old in the arena of beliefs and ideas of how to show the love of Christ. It's sad to see, though, that neither group within the Church (and I'm speaking in very generalized terms here) seems to be able to look at the other and truly understand that each has some very valid concerns.

Before crying, “Traditonalism!” as if it were a bad thing, the younger generation needs to see that there’s actually good reason that many of the “traditions” within the church have become such. “Tradition” doesn’t automatically translate into “self-absorbed.” We are built on community. Just because we group together with others of a like mind and faith, it doesn’t mean that we’ve automatically shut out the rest of the world.

Before crying, “Radical!” as if it were a bad thing, the older generation needs to remember that Jesus brought with Him some extremely radical challenges to the traditional religious mindset, and that questioning our traditions is nearly always a good thing. Just as we’re to personally examine our motives and ask God to show us any wrong way within us and to lead us into the right way (Psalm 139:23-24), the church should be doing this with its traditionalism, its programs, etc.

Interested in your comments and perspectives.

Posted in: Christianity, People, The Church