Today, in our “What is church?” challenge we encounter a family of four with their 6-word answers. And we hear from a mom in her thirties and a pastor of a multi-cultural church.

 

6-Word Descriptions of church by a family of four. Isaiah is 12, Grace is 9. Jenny is the mom. Michael is the dad, both in their forties. Having been Quakers for many years they are now exploring new forms of spiritual community.

Isaiah: joyful fun wilderness enthusiastic movement
Grace: full of life, games happy truthful
Jenny: full of life, community joy service
Michael: Moving together with the Holy Spirit

 

Essay on “What is Church?” by Jessica Sanborn, a thirty-something mother of three. She is on sabbatical from church and the practice of law.

Going to church was my world growing up. Consequently, I think that both my world and my understanding of church were too small. Even as my church world started to feel confining and surreal, I would never have imagined that a time would come when I stayed home, as a rule, on Sunday mornings.

On my last morning as a Sunday regular, I walked into our church service and immediately and uncontrollably started shaking and crying. As I sat down, I remember “hearing” distinctly: “You do not belong here.” That phrase was gentle and hard. I knew that I had to go, and it scared me because it meant leaving my world as I knew it.

At first, I thought that this panic attack was due to stress and an overload of anxiety. Which it was. But now I wonder if this was also my call to step out into a wilderness, to disentangle myself from the familiar and safe. I don’t know that I would have left any other way.

Encounters with God occur in the wilderness, don’t they? Encounters that leave us limping and undone. And isn’t that when we find Real Life?   After we let go and are undone?

I wonder if this wilderness time is also an invitation to a different understanding of Church?

An invitation to Church as More. More than Sunday mornings and outreach. More than small groups and potlucks.

An invitation to a Church that is broad and deep and ancient and new. To a Church that cuts across time, culture, politics, gender, creed, and denomination. This Baptist daughter has much to learn from Catholic saints and poets, from Episcopalian scholars, from liturgical practices, from ancient rhythms.

Maybe I needed to learn that church is not the best place to listen for God’s word. I’m finding that I listen best in silence. I’m discovering God’s word in the woods, while I wash my floors, and while I hold my children. I keep finding myself in the stories, like I am living the word somehow.

Maybe I needed to learn that church is not the only place to worship God. My presence can meet God’s presence in my room, in my car on the drive to preschool, in the kitchen while I am chopping vegetables, or just staring out of the window watching birds fly across the sky.

Maybe I needed to realize that church is not the only place to form a fellowship for our journey. I often had the nagging suspicion that we got so busy doing church, we didn’t have time to be the Church. I was so busy with life and church that I hardly had time to know my neighbors, let alone love them. I’ve found this aspect of church tricky while both attending and not attending. But now I have more space, both in time and heart, to walk beside those around me.

I kept hoping that church would provide a place to belong, like it did when I was in youth group. But maybe I needed to learn to belong to myself, to God, to the world around me, as part of the fellowship of seekers and lovers.

My wilderness time is a time of learning to be. I wonder if this time is also about learning another way of being Church.

A way that is not limited by denominations or sanctuaries.

A way where we join anyone who is living as God’s hands and feet in this world.

A way where we walk alongside others who are listening for the call to follow, wherever that way may lead.

A way where we wake up into a spirit life that is free and uncontainable, like the wind.

A way where we escape the jar of yeast, thrown into the batch of flour, transforming the world around us as we are also transformed.

A way where we experience Real Life like a spring erupting in our very beings.

Maybe someday this way will lead me back into Sunday morning fellowship and participation in a local church. But in a new way–with a spacious and grateful heart, new eyes, listening ears, and a new appreciation for my place in the broad, eternal ocean of grace and God’s love.

 

In this essay Kelly Chatman shares his view of church. He is an African American pastor of an inner city multi-racial protestant church. He’s been pastor there for more than 12 years. He is in his fifties.

What is church to me?   I believe the church is the most powerful institution in the world. The church is the only institution I know that says that no matter who you are or where you come from you are welcome here. This is important to me because I believe a basic human desire is to know that we are safe and that we belong. When the church is fulfilling its promise the church is a place of safety and belonging. The liturgy, gathering the experience of worship is an enactment of “oneness”. When we worship God is present and everyone is welcome, there are no exceptions!

Church to me is where people learn and develop faith and the belief that God cares and we are not alone. The church teaches and encourages learning through intellect and experience what is sacred. Church is not limited to a building, congregation or denomination but is the discovery of how and where and how we experience God in the world.

The church is where I invest my hope as a place or experience where people experience and explore their connection to a community. I am an African American pastor in a denomination that is primarily White and in numerical decline. In our history we have struggled to fully include all people.  The church for me witnesses to a man named Jesus who came as Son of God and he welcomed people with different social, racial and economic backgrounds.  The Jesus and church I know welcomes everybody, gay, straight, rich, poor, black and white.

What is church for you?

How does that affect the way you live your life?

How is your view of church different now than it was in your childhood?