In preparation for a disscussion for the next few weeks at TOT on what church means, we were invited to share our own thoughts on the issue-- I thought I would share some of my responses to this question here:

Although I am not very old, I feel like in many ways I have had a very full
lifetime of questions about church. In retrospect, some of my
earliest years felt like a tour of various liturgical landmines, including
experiences in churches focused on a lot more "theology" than getting deep into
the pain caused by rampant cliques and exclusion.

My early Christian-hood was based on an inner desire to simply be accepted,
which I hoped would somehow be achieved by my efforts to be a "good
christian." This led mostly to a lifestyle of very careful living that
came out of a deep belief that if I just "loved" God the right way ( i.e.
doing/being what/who people told me I should do/be) then maybe I would at some
point reach a place where I could shed this sense that there was something
inherently wrong with me.


In the two and half years that I have been out of high school, I have
continued the search in sorting out what what was true in my experience growing
up and what I need to shed and forgive. In light of a background of such
hurt, exclusion, and confusion about my own worth and belonging associated with
the church (and therefore God), I have a deep passion to discover what God
ultimately intended for us as a community of human beings. I can't help
but believe that God designed something better for his kingdom.


The first seven months of this year, which I spent in Boise, I found
that my deepest experiences with community and spirituality were often simply
through long walks around my neighborhood and talking to co-workers and
customers who came to the coffeehouse. I felt this deep sense that the
life God intends for us and our experience of him must be much larger than the
parameters that we place on him with our [apparently] pristine church
walls. As I spent a lot of time outside, I got this sense that a picture
of the open skies that God created is a better picture of how church should be
than the brick buildings that we often use to box Him in. I felt like the time I
took away from church as I had known it allowed me a "detox" from the layers
heaped on by my church experience, and I am beginning to see that life is about
enjoying God in all of his biggness and the Church is a major part as it enables
us to live in the communal way that God intended, sharing with one another the
depth of life in both our joys and pains.


I find that my journey has led to a lot of significant wrestling that
has opened me to what God is like in so many ways. It seems that the more
I wrestle, the more questions I have and I feel like I am at a point where I can
least effectively articulate what community or church looks like, but I do know
this-- if church is not a place that brings freedom, healing, and restoration in
ways that help people understand who they have been created to be at the deepest
levels, I don't think we can call it the Body of Christ. More than
anything, I think church needs to be a place where we are freed to love-- freed
to love God and all that he has created and loves himself (which includes, and I
may even argue first, ourselves). Church must never be a place where we
can numbly slide over our deepest hurts and loves in favor of "getting through
material" or putting on a program because we will never find life if we do so.
As we are reminded in Isaiah, God "desires mercy not sacrifice--" the Lord is
much more interested in the life of the heart than the ritual. As my experience
leads me to believe, we can talk about loving and following commandments all day
long, but if we never aknowledge or deal with the hurt and brokeness that
ultimately keeps us from doing so, all we will be doing in running around
self-sufficent circles of guilt.

So often we get caught up in what church should look like that we forget
that ultimately we are seeking a life that is true at the deepest, most
beautiful levels as God created it-- a life that I believe Jesus came to
show.