Church: No Ordinary Organization

psalm 148:1-13

colossians 3:5-17

I know a little something about organizations. Actually you could say that I have been a professional organization member for a large part of my life. In high school, I was president of my class for 3 years, I played sports, I was a member of my church youth group, the Junior Engineering Technical Society, Math Counts, National Honor Society . . . and it got worse in college. So many more options. . . I joined Illini Life, Illini Pride, Volunteer Illini, Campus Crusade for Christ, Intervarsity, Student government. . . but that was not quite good enough either. So I started looking for a fraternity to join. No fraternity caught my eye though so 6 other guys and I decided to start one. We soon came in contact with a national fraternity that had previously been on campus at the U of I in Champaign, but were no longer there. They wanted to start a new fraternity at the U of I and the seven of us were the ones that founded it.

So I know a little something about organizations. I have joined them, led them, and started them. From formulating by-laws to finances, from membership requirements to initiation ceremonies, from meetings to social events. . . I have seen quite a bit of what organizations have to offer.

So the question is why become a part of a church when there are so many other organizations out there to be a part of and many of them won’t even ask you for money every week? What makes church special?

People join organizations for all sorts of reasons. . . when we started the fraternity I was the designated salesperson or pitchman. So when all of the other fraternities were inviting guys over to their beautiful houses to recruit. . . our fraternity of 7 guys was inviting guys to 133 Gregory Hall, the same classroom that most freshman had English class. It was not too impressive and I imagine a lot of people just showed up at our informational meetings just to see what kind of goofy guys have a fraternity that meets in a classroom.

Nonetheless, people would see our flyers around campus or hear about us by word of mouth and show up at our informational recruitment meetings. To be honest I think a lot of people just showed up because we advertised free pizza. And pizza, well that is like air to college guys. We tried to hold 1 or 2 recruitment meetings a week. Sometimes no one would show up and we would just eat our own pizza. Other times, 5, 10, and even 50 guys would show up to learn about what we were trying to do with our new fraternity. They came for all sorts of reasons. The pizza. To meet new people. To be a part of something new. Because they had nothing else to do.

I would walk up to the front of the room to start my presentation. I could probably give it to you now word for word, but it went something like this, “Do you want to be a part of something special, do you want to be a part of something new, something different, something better? Are you a leader, a scholar, an athlete, a gentleman. . . if you are, you are in the right place this evening. You have the opportunity to be on the ground floor of something great, something that no other fraternity has dared to do.” I would then proceed to explain about how our fraternity desired to be a social leader, but also an academic leader. . . about how we wanted to be an air tight brotherhood of diverse guys dedicated to community service and personal development.

Some guys joined, some did not. And it took quite a while before our little organization started to look like a fraternity.
But we eventually began to grow and eventually got 15 guys, 30, 60, and now they have over 140. It was great. We had succeeded in creating an organization and held to the standards that we had begun with.

But it wasn’t long that I felt a nagging at my heart. What was the point of this organization? Sure we had our social goals and even our goals of creating leaders. . . but what was God’s purpose in this? It all felt so shallow all of a sudden.

Now I was able to change some of this by starting a spiritual discussion group and then a Bible study and connecting guys to the church I attended, but the fraternity still always felt mysteriously ordinary. Sure we had lofty goals of community and community service, but something was always missing.

Now I don’t just tell you this story because I want you to know a little about my college life, I tell you this because as a self-proclaimed organization expert, I believe this was the first point in my life that I began to realize that the church of Jesus Christ offers something that no other organization could hope to match. It is not accurate to say that God is not at work outside of the church, but we can say with confidence that outside the church there is no organization or community attempting to demonstrate the fullness of the Gospel.

Tragically, though, we as church members sometimes succeed in making it exceedingly difficult to tell the difference between church and your ordinary organization. We have membership. We have meetings. We have staff. We have events. We have budgets. It seems that the church often goes out of its way to look like other organizations. . . the church seems to go out of its way to look more ordinary.

Now it is obvious that the church needs some organizational structure in order to function, but we must not presume that we are constrained by the same rules as secular organizations. If we do we ignore that thing that makes the church extraordinary, the power of God and the Holy Spirit’s continual work.

Too often today’s church seeks to model what works in the world, rather than creating successful models for the world to marvel at. For instance, some church leaders try to run the church according to a business model. True this often makes for safe, secure, and worry free budgets, but does it leave room for God? Does it leave room for the mid-year movement of the Holy Spirit?

Other churches watch contemporary culture and try to mock what seems to be working on television or in the movies. True this functions to entertain and get people in the door, but does this truly connect people to the divine? Are people really brought into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and made disciples of his teachings?

Still some churches add more programs, some for kids, some for parents, some for the retired, some for singles, some for college students, and so on. But do all these programs foster the community of Christ or do they help to polarize us as individuals?

The answer to these questions is not always easy, but these questions must be asked when we discuss church. So if church is not ordinary, if it is to be set apart from the world. . . what exactly is the Church?

To begin with, the Church is not its congregational structure, it is not the building, or even the worship practices. The Church is where Christ dwells amongst those who know him as Lord and seek to live a life that reflects his true Word and will.

The Church is the body of people through whom Christ is active and at work in transforming the world. This is not to say that Christ’s action is limited to the Church, but simply that it is in the Church that Christ’s message of salvation is fully understood in community. The Church is an earthly glimpse, however imperfect, of the eternal reality of the kingdom of God.

I think there are five key qualities that characterize what the church should be:

First, the church is to be apostolic. “Apostolic” simply means that the church should be true to the teachings of Jesus’ original apostles. This only makes sense because clearly Jesus’ apostles knew the most about what Jesus taught and what he desired Christians to do once Christ left. We are not the first people to try this church thing. And we must try to connect with the practices and faith of believers throughout history.

Second, the church should be the place where the Word of God is taught. This does not only take place through the pastor’s sermons, but it takes place in all aspects of the church’s life, from Sunday School to Small groups. We are to continually immerse ourselves in the Word of God and interpret and study it in community where each can learn from one another.

Third, the church is in service to its head, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died so that those who believe, the church, shall be forgiven for their sins and spend eternal life with Him in heaven. The church is where people can most readily encounter God and witness others who are more fully becoming His disciples. The church should work collectively to demonstrate Christ’s love to the community and beyond. The church is the closest thing to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Fourth, the church is a community or a fellowship. The church is far more than a meeting place for a bunch of individuals. The church is a community that functions as one body. The church has a unity of purpose. Now this does not mean that everyone in the church is the same, but it simply means that the church moves together as the Holy Spirit directs. The church is not one because we all like Ollie’s, which we all probably do, or the church is not one because we are all dentists or because we are all in our 40’s and have 3 children. No, the church is one because we all know Christ. . . we though many parts are one body with Christ as our head.

Finally, the church has a commonality in purpose. The mission of the church is to make disciples of all nations. Notice that this command given by Jesus to his disciples does not say, “go, make believers of all nations,” but it says, “go, make disciples of all nations.” The church’s job is not simply to make people believe in Jesus Christ, but it is to educate, train, and build up disciples of Jesus Christ. The church should lead people into obedience and devotion to God.

There is one very clear message that permeates each of these points. Though the church is a community of individuals, church is not about us. Church is absolutely and completely about God. We gather together as a community in support of one another and for fellowship. . . but it is not about us, it is all about God. The church is where we present ourselves to God in community and can confess as we just did in the praise song “heart of worship,” “I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus, I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it, when it’s all about you, It’s all about you Jesus.”

We all have a hundred things that we want in our church. Some of us would prefer lazy boy recliners to the old wooden pews. Some of us wish that when the pastor said, “now let us come and worship,” everyone would stand up and cheer. Some of us wish that everyone still wore three piece suits and dresses each Sunday. Some wish we had communion every Sunday, while other may wish that we had it 4 times a year.

We all have our wants. But my goal today is to help us to understand that church is not about what we want. Its not even about what we would prefer or about what makes us feel better. No, church is about what we need, church is about God. And if we truly understand that church is about God, then we will realize how silly it is to think that we can only worship God with projection screens and drums or we can only worship God with hymns and an organ. Our God is a big God. . . and it is not all about us. . . it is all about him.

A few weeks ago I was at a meeting for the Seminary Student Association. I still have not gotten over my over-commitment to organizations problem and am the Seminary Student Association’s treasurer. At the end of our meeting we went around the room and prayed for the person on our left. Sitting on my right and designated to pray for me was a friend of mine who is Puerto Rican. She speaks English, but is far more comfortable speaking in Spanish. She asked me if it would be o.k. if she prayed for me in Spanish. Now I know some Spanish, but when native speakers begin to speak in Spanish I usually end up 5 or 6 sentences behind and quickly get lost. Regardless, I said that would be fine if she prayed in Spanish. Although I did not understand the majority of what she was saying, there is something awe inspiring about a God who can receive prayers for me that I do not even understand. You see its not about having the right words to say, understanding everything, or even about the right language. . . it is not at all about us. . . it is all about God. I understood probably 7 words from her prayer, but I know we were worshiping God together. It wasn’t about me, it was all about God.

I think in some ways we have been tricked by the secular world into expecting the devices of worship to evoke certain feelings in us. Whether it is the clapping participation and arms raised up of praise songs or the solemn, melodic reverence of ancient hymns, these devices become where we draw our comfort and from which our emotions are stirred. While this music may stir our emotions it too often fails to stir our souls. Our connection is with the devices of worship and not with the object of that worship. Instead of intimately knowing God and finding him everywhere, we convince ourselves that he can only be found in certain songs, in certain clothes, or even in certain languages. And not surprisingly, the places where we think God can be found are the ones that we tend to like.

Some of you may think that I chose some peculiar readings for a sermon on church. There are indeed some great passages on community, on being called to make disciples of all nations, on working together, but I chose the passage in Colossians because it speaks more clearly to those things that hold church’s back from being all God has called them to be. The passage illustrates those individual concerns that hinder churches from collectively hearing the voice of God calling them to accomplish not necessarily comfortable, but great things together.

Listen closely to what Paul says in Colossians, “Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are all called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”

Community is not easy. Church is not easy. That is why more and more people have given up on it. They have chosen to stay home, to sleep in, to go golfing. . . whatever, just to be alone. At the very least people have chosen to join organizations with people just like them. If everyone agrees then it just makes for less headaches.

But the church is no ordinary organization. It was meant to be diverse in every way. What sets the church apart from other organizations is that it is not all about its members. It is all about God. It is all about the only being in the world that answers everyone that genuinely seeks him.

A few weeks ago, I was going through some things in my grandparents home and came across a church bulletin that they had saved about 20 years ago. I couldn’t figure out why they saved this particular bulletin until I saw a poem on the back. The poem was called, “Problems at Church.” I apologize that it is not gender neutral but it read,

If you should find the perfect church
Without one fault or smear
For goodness sake don’t join that church;
You’d spoil the atmosphere.
If you should find the perfect church
Where all anxieties cease,
Then pass it by lest joining it
You mar the masterpiece.
If you should find the perfect church
Then don’t you ever dare
To tread upon such holy ground;
You’d be a misfit there.
But since no perfect church exists
Made of imperfect men,
Then let’s cease looking for that church
And love the church we’re in.
Of course it’s not a perfect church,
That’s simple to discern –
But you and I and all of us
Could cause the tide to turn.
What fools we are to flee our post
In that unfruitful search
To find at last where problems loom
God proudly builds His Church.
So let’s keep working in our church
Until the resurrection,
And then we each will join God’s Church
Without an imperfection.

The poem was signed, “submitted by a fellow member.” Both my grandparents are in their mid-eighties and have been going to the same church their entire lives. They have seen lots of people come and go. They have had pastors they have really liked and others they have only tolerated. They have seen parts of the service change and other parts stay the same. But I think they saved this poem because it reminded them of why they have stayed at the same church for so long. Church is no ordinary organization. It’s not something that is subject to our likes and dislikes. Church is all about God. . . and when we make it all about God, we are pleasantly surprised by how unexpected and abundant God’s blessings can be.

Let us pray.

Lord, we are sorry for the things that we have made it. We are sorry that we have turned worship into a buffet of likes and dislikes. We are sorry that your church has been separated by stylistic differences. We are sorry that we too often focus on ourselves when we should be focusing on you. Lord, we are thankful that around the world right now, a multitude of people are worshiping you in a multitude of ways. And Lord we thank you that if their worship is all about you that it is pleasing in your sight. Lord bond us today in unity and commonality of mission. Help us to hear the call of the Holy Spirit and to be obedient to his leading. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.