The Perfect Church part 5

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." --Hebrews 10:31

I remember in my younger, and less wise years I had a conversation with my grandmother. She mentioned a young, wayward boy who needed to know Jesus as his savior and was getting into trouble on the streets. I, of course, being an uber Christian at the time wanted to jump right in and show him Jesus and get him saved and straightened out. As foolish as such an idea was I had the right spirit.

My grandmother told me, "This boy is dangerous. You might get hurt. You need to stay safe."

My young, undisciplined and impetuous masculine heart exploded in me. I gave my grandmother a wild look and challenged her with, "Safe? God is not safe!"

In my meditations on the Church and our efforts to make it perfect, I came to a rather unsettling conclusion. The question that came to mind was "Why do we feel a need to try to create a 'perfect' Church?"

In the last few blogs I have discussed man's attempt at keeping the appearance of a smooth, happily running Church and hopefully exposing the truth behind the facade. I discussed the modern Church as being the perfect breeding ground for hypocrisy (i.e. the church-face disease).

In my journey to discover the spiritual part of man and the rugged adventure his God calls him to, and in my journey to get to the bottom of why many men stay at home, or go fishing instead of sit in pews during Sunday services, and in my journey to know what truly draws a man's soul to God, I found an answer that will haunt me till my dying day.

A man's soul, in its primitive form doesn't want safe. A man's soul doesn't want predictable. A man's soul, if he is to be honest is quite bored, or lulled into sedation by routine, and format in what happens in most churches.

In the Bible, we have a God that doesn't dwell in buildings (initially) but dwells in the deserts, the mountains and the wild lands. If we read we find a God that usually shuns civilized man and draws His people far away from such a life.

We don't have a God who we usher in with emotional music, rather we have a God of fire atop of a mountain that inspires a deep terror and awe to the point where people sent their spokesman (Moses) to meet with God instead of meeting Him for themselves.

In the Bible we have a God that is untamed. In the Bible we have a God that doesn't respond to man, but causes man to respond.

A wild, dangerous God clothed in smoke and fire draws and stirs the soul of man. A God that has to be begged, a God that has to be ushered in and we can lose at any time. A God that we have to stir up is a God we can control. It is a God that we feel safe with. We keep the predictability and button pushing so the ball is always in our court.

And truth be told, in the heart of his hearts, no man can respect such a God.

So back to my question. Why do we need to create this illusion of the perfect Church? What did I find that so haunted me? The answer is we are afraid. No, we aren't afraid of hell, for the most part. We aren't afraid of other people. We are afraid of what God might do. We are afraid to let Him out of His cage. That's right. We keep God in a cage on a stage behind a podium and we worship Him, yet we have no real reason to worship Him as he is chained and bound and unable to move and do anything. But at least He looks pretty!

I remember asking a "worship" pastor a question that I was sure he didn't like. We were discussing the format of the service and I put on the table the concept of an open participation format where all believers can contribute something. I asked him if it would be ok if I stood up next Sunday and prophesied in the service. His answer was as I predicted "No, because you would be disruptive to the service."

So I asked him a thought provoking question that I could tell made him uneasy and I asked him point blank, "Is it ok if God disrupted your service?"

All through the Bible, when men came face to face with God, when they had visions of heaven or angels, they were terrified. They were deeply unnerved. They were so overwhelmed that they fell to their faces.

I remember the account of Isaiah who kept falling to his face so overwhelmed with the actual presence of God (not the emotional feelings we create with music mind you) that God Himself had to stand Isaiah up and keep him standing. The image in my mind is a bit humorous, the Holy Spirit almost playing puppeteer with the body of the terrified prophet just so he can speak to him!

This is a far cry from the soft, soothing, comforting, oh so predictable format we have concocted and all of the maladies I have addressed in previous blogs with the Church.

The Quakers, when they started out, actually lived up to their namesake. They would hold silent meetings as their main worship service. They sat in silence and allowed God to simply move as He would. When the presence was felt, that is, when people became aware of the reality of who and what God was, they shook from head to toe, hence the name, "Quaker".

Yes, God is love. Yes, Love drives out all fear. But what is it to be in the presence of that Love? I hold that if one is truly aware of the presence of God in them and around them, truly aware of the pure, concentrated love, it is quite an unsettling prospect, and is terrifying indeed. This love is a consuming fire. When I think of this love, I think of a blazing inferno, a wildfire that devours hundreds if not thousands of acres. It is a firestorm that is unstoppable. It is not a small, controlled candle that we can blow out if things get unsafe or when we are done with it. We don't have our way with this nice little campfire cooking Smores and telling stories. This fire has its way with US!

To let go of all of our vises used to control and manipulate our church surroundings, environments and "worship" services, is to indeed place ourselves squarely in the hand of the living God. It is to unnerve us. It is to put us off balance. It is to put us off kilter and out of control and allow the same force that appeared as fire atop a mountain that terrified the people, it is to allow the same force which caused many men to fall to their faces, or drove them out of society to live in the wilderness, turning them, from all appearances, into madmen driven with an obsession with the knowledge of God, it is to allow that unpredictable, wild, untamed God full reign over what happens. Remember, the Bible speaks of a God that caused mountains to melt like wax and entire nations to be wiped out.

This concept scares us. It disturbs us. Yes, dear reader, it even disturbs me to think of such things. If I put down all of my toys, all of my defenses and ways of manipulating my own life and feelings and worshiping Him on my terms and in my way, I am exposed. I am helpless. I find myself falling into the hand of the Living God. This, I am afraid, as everyone else probably is, would be my undoing. My whole life would never be the same. I would be like the men in the Bible who were driven to lose everything for this wild, untamed, and savage God.

The perfect church doesn't like such men. Such men don't behave. Such men don't sit still and nod and smile to the perfectly crafted, neatly wrapped theology handed to us by a seminarian behind the pulpit. The perfect church calls men such as this rebellious. They tell us we need to submit to our leadership and humble ourselves. And for very good reason. We follow and love a God which they are frightened of and have caged and chained in services every week that I just described. We are being conformed to that God's image. We are called to live as His son lived. And such a man is a force to be reckoned with. These churches would seek to put us in a cage just like they do with their God. Such a man threatens tyrants and structures of power. Such a man, in the Bible is outcast, beheaded, imprisoned and stoned.

I hold that if such a church existed today, it would be declared illegal by our government. If such a church existed today, we would be imprisoned just like the first century apostles, just like the prophet Jeremiah. We would be executed just like John the Baptist. And we wouldn't be the perfect church anymore