An Imerfectly Perfect Church

Should Church be perfect?

I know that as a wife and mother, I often want to make things better (if not perfect): the house cleaner or more organized; our homelife more serene or fun depending on the circumstances; communication with my husband more (you get it).....And somehow, in my quest, I tend to make things more complicated.  Instead of enjoying where things are at, or simply maximizing what I have, I can stress everybody out trying to reach some self-imposed ideal. And often, when I simply relax and roll with grace and acceptance while doing the best I can, something miraculous happens: the imperfections become perfectly 'us'.  The process of working through life together helps shape who we are as a family. It's not always pretty, but it defintely is unique to us!

Can the same be true for the church?

In his book Practicing Resurrection, Eugune Peterson says this:

 “It is easy to dismiss the church as ineffective and irrelevant.  And many do dismiss it.  It is easy to be condescending to the church because so many of its members are unimpressive nonentities.  Condescension is widespread.  It is common to become disillusioned with the church because expectations formed in the country of death and by the lies of the devil are disappointments.  Disillusionment is, as a matter of course, common.” (p.13)

He goes on and challenges us to consider: what if God created the church to be imperfect? What if the problems we like to point out are actually designed by God to be the very thing that causes us to grow in the stature of Christ, to become mature believers?  If this is true, wouldn't that change our perspective in how we evaluate and experience Church?

I've never met a perfect family, and I've certainly never been to nor heard of a perfect church (not even in the Bible!), but we are all "imperfectly perfecting".

I love the local church, in all it's imperfections, because I know, in the end....God will complete the work He has started. In the meantime, we will continue to grow and mature in responsiveness to the calling that God has called us to.

Is Communication About the Message or the Response?

I'm reading a book, Less Clutter, Less Noise by Kem Meyer on communication strategies, and it's got me thinking.  Tell me what you think.

"Good communication is not so much about sending the right message as it is releasing the right response".

• As Christians we are very concerned with the Message, that it IS the right message.  Are we more concerned with it being "right" than we are leading others to the "right response"?
• Has our message become more important than the desired response?

"...a message might be important to your INTERNAL corporate audience but completely absurd for your EXTERNAL audience."

• Ultimately, who are we trying to reach, influence, impress with our message?
• There is a difference in how we craft an internal- v. external-oriented message.  Can we accept the difference and accomodate it?
• Have we created a culture that focuses on the internal message, to reach/influence/impress ourselves?

So what do you think?

Weakness is a Key to Strength

I hate feeling weak. I want to feel strong, able to accomplish my tasks with energy, to have something leftover at the end of the day to enjoy myself.  But if I don't exercise my muscles (whether they be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, etc),  they lose strength over time.  And exercising muscles requires a conscious choice on my part.  Not only that, to really build strength I need to push my muscles past their point of weakness.

Right now I'm sitting here, trembly and weak after a tough work out with my trainer.  When I showed up he asked if I was ready to get my butt kicked.  He then proceeded to do just that.  It was hard.  It was embarassing to get to the point where I couldn't do something and then had to do it anyway.  And I did.  It wasn't elegant.  It was necessary.  I'll never push past my limits otherwise. 

It seems that the culture we live in has become at ease with making excuses for our weaknesses.  That we've accepted "I can't" as a reality instead of pushing past into an overcoming position. This keeps us weak!  In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about his weakness and how he asked God repeatedly to remove it from him.  Instead, God used it as a point of building strength in Paul's life - God strength.  Paul was getting some God-muscle, "that the power of Christ can work through me....for when I am weak, then I am strong". 

Today, I was doing a series of exercises that were targeted at my greatest area of weakness, one after the other, ending with an exercise I seriously despise....because I can't do it.  As I did the first set, I struggled.  As I did the second set, I hated my trainer.  I wanted to quit.  I wanted to cry.  He was yelling at me to keep going.  I just couldn't.  Until I did. 

In life, we all have areas of weaknesses.  Don't ignore them.  Work through them to the point of strength. 

And by the way, I don't hate my trainer.  Afterwards I'm always glad he pushed me further.  After all, when I started I couldn't do a set of 10.  Today I did 25.  And I know he's working with me to reach my goals.

Where do you want to be strong?  What weaknesses do you have?  How are you going to push past them?
Just do it.  I know you can! :)