:: What's the Church to be? ::

Someone asked on Resonate: "...in this conversation is the "church"
referred to the institutional denominational systems?"

It got me thinking:

What will happen when Israel turns en masse to the Messiah? How much revelation will they unlock to us western minds? Between some people's call to simple and straight-forward action, and the processing of ideas that lead many to feel inspired, there's a wealth that's spelled "C-H-U-R-C-H."

I think the move has been that people started walking at a level where their church party line appeared to be lacking in depth and passion. Maybe they felt something pulling in their own lives, as if realizing they were following the wrong leader and woke up on a deserted road, not on the road to Emmaus. But all the while, they were told they were going to be doing all that stuff for God, and finally, it was more to keep the collective religious unit busy.

Something of the message resounded: "Father loves YOU." And the journey it started us on has been anything but well defined. Most of us have found fuel for it by reading the mystics, as well as theologians that have addressed the relevance of the Gospel on their generation's social canvas. We're searching right now, and should be opened to the temporary nature of our findings, but we should encourage the profusion of expression so that the small gems would be pourred out by the generous flow of authentic inquiries.

What I see happen is the Church seeking its Savior. Because the Church needs to reconnect with salvation in a fresh way if the world is going to see our light, and if the Church is to be the place of refuge (and sacrifice) that will allow the members to come together and become an organic spiritual body. We need to clean-up and rescue the world from the extreme christian fundamentalism that threatens to take over the world and declare itself the new and only valid Christianity.

When I refer to extreme christian fundamentalism, I refer to the Christian Right which plasters its fear of sin all over the media and political agendas. I fear that by keeping the world out of the church, "them", we keep the church out of the world... so we need to redefine church not as a political power, but as a social changing factor, the kingdom of God.