Who are we?

This last Sunday we listened to a Graham Cook message in the leadership meeting, it was good, really good. But one thing was mentioned that there were different kinds of churches, Pioneer churches, resource churches, other types of churches. And it seemed as though the group thinks we are going into a 'resource' church phase in our growth. I find that all fine and dandy except for one thing. It smells of uselessness. And what I mean about that is this: How many churches claim to be of something? I see Bible churches, missional churches, new age churches, protestant churches, catholic churches. yadda yadda. I realize that it's good to know what you are and where you are going and how you are going to get there. But I don't think it needs to be defined and tagged. That's the whole reason why we got to where we are in the evangelical churches today. We want one that might fit anyones lifestyle instead of realizing that we just box God and box ourselves when we do it.

I think that when we begin to define ourselves through a phrase or attempt to stamp a single title onto our church names it boxes up what God has in store for us. It means we begin to get tunnel vision, and it also can mean that we push out people that may have different ideas on how to follow God or do his work. Churches primacy is to promote good relationships between believers and with the community. The second job of a church is to provide the structure, the mechanics on how it all fits together. If the mechanics ever trump the relationship side of things you need to throw away your structure and rethink how you are doing this God thing. It flows over into every single aspect of our lives though, it doesn't just affect how we do church. If I give myself a job title am I only that job title? or are there more layers to me? Can I be more than one thing during a given day? Absolutely, in fact depending on what relationship I'm interacting with at any time I will be a completely different person because that is what is required of me. How come the church doesn't do the same thing? Why do we need to box ourselves up, label ourselves and try to fit into the world. It just doesn't work like that.