Teams Within the Team
We recently got back from Virginia and a family reunion with Claudia’s clan. It was a great time in the high heat and humidity spiced with laughter and much too much comfort food, like mounds of sugared bacon (so good you want to rub it in your hair).
Driving in from the country and around the Roanoke area, it struck me again how many churches are in most towns in the South. Almost every corner has another flavor or three of the same brand, all vying for folks to come to their shop rather than the one across the intersection. So many kinds, all playing differing versions of the same tune.
Back in Bend, Claudia and I are part of a pretty dang good local congregation. It’s called Foundry Church, with a nod to places where raw metal is formed into shapes that can be utilized for any number of uses. This church been around for 120 years and claims to be the oldest in Bend, still meeting on the same patch of downtown since the start.
Foundry has, like any church of a certain age, seen both fat and lean years. COVID and politics kicked us hard, and we saw many folks leave to go elsewhere when our leadership chose to close down and mask with distance when we returned. We felt it was the loving thing to do for the immuno-compromised among us, and because no one seemed to have all the answers.
Today we are smaller than before, but there are lots of signs of health, and genuine faith-in-life evidence abounds. But as I sat in church not long ago, I wondered whether or not Jesus would recognize what our group was doing, with the singing and talking and praying and such, as all headed in the right direction, garnering a smile and a nod from the boss.
I mean, think about it: with the super wide variety of ways of doing faith, can any one group really say they are getting it right? What makes me so arrogant to believe my tribe has a corner on the truth market when all the others feel the same about how they do faith? With every church backing their play with scripture references or traditions, surely we each go wide of the mark in some ways.
This chain of thought (when I ought to have been paying attention to the message {sorry, pastor}) led me to thinking how easy it is for any church, or individual for that matter, to hold onto a Christianity without Jesus at the center, with him in the role as a mascot or the endorser of my agenda. What forces nudge a person bit by bit, and then, by extension any local church group, away from Jesus-as-Savior living, to Jesus-as-Board-Member of our organization, or life?
A good question to ask is, as Ray Ortlund says, “has Jesus become the chaplain of my status quo?”
The selfish desires in any person of faith or a local church lead to all kinds of bad outcomes. When Jesus no longer stands in the center of life and of the life of a church, he simply becomes the Cosmic Rubber Stamp for how I think things should go. So, driven by politics or race or regional bias, the radical message of love and inclusion Jesus brought can be so often slid behind whatever agenda is driving the bus.
But the truth is that we play in his ballpark, not he in ours. He is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Jesus is groom and we his bride. But it’s not a hard lift to muscle in and turn all that upside down. But with Jesus at the center, whether you like smells and bells or revival-style emotion in a church, social justice action or salvation invitations, quiet reflection or rowdy praises, there’s plenty of room for everyone. It’s an all-skate!
So, as the sermon continued up front, my thinking went to all the different ways believers either stay in sync or swing wide of the Jesus agenda. Truth is, we all do to some degree as each group interprets and puts into action that agenda. But it’s so easy to get parochial and cheer for our team meeting in the church on the corner with the doors open wide while looking side-eyed at the other groups around town.
And while I ought to have been paying attention, questions popped into my head.
What if there were teams, but no competition, just groups better suited to where a person can fit and use their gifts?
What if we worked to see ourselves as merely variations on a theme where personal understanding of faith and life determined as much as anything where we align?
How would it look if churches didn’t compare and compete, but just follow Jesus as honestly as possible, and wished the best for all the others?
Arguments about faith facts and behaviors have existed among believers from the beginning, but what does it gain for the kingdom if we bite and bark at others not exactly in line with us?
What if churches stayed in their own dog dish?
I’m aware this sounds a bit Kum-ba-yah-ish, but with all the diversity in our world, it makes sense that there would be so many variations on both faith lives and church life. Jesus didn’t die for your church, he died for the world. God’s heart is toward the world and every person in it with all the cultures represented, so diversity in churches is an obvious essential.
It helps me to view our church as a team within a team. Size, programs, liturgy, energy, sacraments/ordinances, music, distinctions, emphasis, and the differences simply highlight the variations in the people attending and the traditions they follow. But we are still under one banner, following one Leader, attempting to live out one message in a thousand different ways.
I guess this note is a call to cut other believers some slack. None of us, certainly not me or Foundry Church, are doing this faith thing/church thing exactly right. A good starting point is to do all you can to reflect the words and message of Jesus in how y’all behave, first in your life and then in whatever church you choose to attend, and encourage other believers to do the same.
Music for the week!
How about 2wo bad jokes for the road…
There was a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, “Praise the Lord!”
Well, one day an atheist moved into the house next door. Over time, he became irritated at the little old lady. So every morning he would step out onto his front porch and yell after her, “There is no Lord!”
Time passes with the two of them carrying on this way every day. Then one morning in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, “Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am starving. Please provide for me, oh Lord!”
The next morning, she stepped onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. “Praise the Lord!” she cried out. “He has provided groceries for me!”
The atheist jumped out of the hedges and shouted, “There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!”
The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted, “Praise the Lord! He has provided me with groceries and He made the devil pay for them!”
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A man goes into the doctor. He says, “Doc, you gotta check my leg. Something's wrong. Just put your ear up to my thigh, you'll hear it!”
The doctor cautiously placed his ear to the man's thigh only to hear, “Gimme 20 bucks, I really need 20 bucks.”
“I've never seen or heard anything like this before, how long has this been going on?” the doctor asked.
“That's nothing Doc. Put your ear to my knee.”
The doctor put his ear to the man's knee and heard it say, “Man, I really need 10 dollars, just lend me 10 bucks!!”
“Sir, I really don't know what to tell you. I've never seen anything like this.” The doctor was dumbfounded.
“Wait Doc, that's not it. There's more, just put your ear up to my ankle,” the man urged him.
The doctor did as the man said and was blown away to hear his ankle plead, “Please, I just need 5 dollars. Lend me 5 bucks please if you will.”
“I have no idea what to tell you,” the doctor said. “There's nothing about it in my books,” he said as he frantically searched all his medical reference books. “I can make a well educated guess though. Based on life and all my previous experience I can tell you that your leg seems to be broke in three places.”