Been reading hither and yon lately and thought I’d share some of the things that passed through my brain. Perhaps you can see a theme developing…

Makeesha talks about evangelism and the event-centric focus in the modern Evangelical church. I think she over-generalizes some, but I don’t doubt that many churches are following that trajectory even if some aren’t as far down the path as others.

Every week we go to the urgent care center(church) where the doctor(pastor) tends to our discomfort giving us medicine to ease our pain, comforting words to make us feel better about dying and then we discuss heaven and what it’s going to be like.

The pastor tells us how we can live our final moments the best way possible and we strategize about how we can get more people to join us in the hospice, talking about how sad it is that there are people “out there” who refuse to join us.

We discuss our bed sores and other maladies and commiserate and then we leave urgent care and enter the village of the dying. (read more)

iMonk laments how God ruined church for him. If you’ve found yourself identifying with various church traditions and unable to affirm everything you find in your own then you need to read this :

You see, it’s supposed to work like this: The world of churches is like a big mall, and there are many different kinds of stores. You choose one store–ONE–and you go there for everything you need. You are LOYAL to that store. You BELIEVE in that store and what it’s all about; in the way it does things. You persuade others that your store is the one and only store real shoppers patronize. You buy name brand merchandise at every opportunity. It’s your store. Yes, there is a mall, but you only need one store.
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And then there are those of us who, because God has ruined our shopping trip by showing us the good and the not so good in all these stores, are trying to shop in the whole mall and get back home. When God ruined everything for us by showing us the value and the limitations of all the stores, he didn’t give us the gift of feeling great about never really having a “home” of our own. (read more)

Brant Hansen quits the church and then does a little Q&A on why :

It seems that a real line has been drawn in the sand here between what you think healthy church is and is not. It seems you think that you have been involved in the not-so-healthy side of things for a while.

Nearly my entire life. I’m a PK, myself, of a fundamentalist background. I’ve also been a full-time youth minister with a church I still love. (Short bio note and disclaimer: I’ve told few people my whole story. But when I have, the usual response is, “It’s amazing you’re a believer.” With that as a backdrop, and if I am all wrong here, please be patient with me.)

I have found that many of the trappings — the non-essential, cultural understandings of “church” — are at odds with the movement that Jesus intended. Honestly, I *think* this is less about the continual hypocrisy, at high levels, we’ve run into, and more about growing in our understanding of what Jesus was talking about. (read more)

10 propositions on worship from Kim Fabricius. Definitely not from a tradition anywhere close to mine but I found myself nodding my head as I read through them - even if I didn’t understand all the words :). Here are some of my favorites :

5. How should worship begin? But worship never begins, or, rather, it has always already begun. You could say that we are always late for worship, because we always enter worship in medias res, the praise unceasing of the communio sanctorum. Never forget that when there are only three old ladies and a dog in the pews.

7. How should worship end? With an ellipsis…. For when the liturgy is over, the service (λειτουργία) begins. Leaving the church is the ultimate liturgical act: Ite, missa est. On Romans 12:1-2, Ernst Käsemann observes that “the cultic vocabulary serves a decidedly anti-cultic thrust. Christian worship does not consist in what is practiced at sacred sites, at sacred times, and with sacred acts. It is the offering of bodily existence in the otherwise profane sphere.” Or as Michael Marshall puts it: “You do not become a Christian by sitting in the pew anymore than you become a car by sitting in the garage.”

8. What should we get out of worship? Wrong question. Worship is not a utility but an offering, i.e. a sacrifice, an economy of grace that interrupts and critiques the feverish cycles of production and consumption – which is why the collection is not fund-raising but cultural critique. If you want relevance, excitement, or profit, go to a rally, a concert, or the stock exchange. To put it most counter-culturally: Blessed are the bored, for they will see God. (read more)

Steven at Doggie’s Breakfast explains more on his resolution to understand the Gospel better :

What my early experience, and these pseudo-quotes display is a belief that the gospel is only to be preached to the unconverted, but once you are saved you need to leave it behind and move on to “living the Christian life”. You see what I’m saying? It is easy to think that “living the Christian life” can be done without the gospel.

The fruit of this thinking can be quite startling when one’s eyes are opened to it. For example, not long after my conversion some of my new Christian friends were attending a church that had a morning “teaching” service and an evening “gospel” service. The interesting thing was the attitude that they developed to the evening service. They were bored by the “gospel” service. At the time I swallowed this. It seemed reasonable: if I were to hear the Four Spiritual Laws, or whatever, week after week then, sure, I would get bored too. (read more)