Thoughts About Church

I grew up in a small town in Carroll County VA. We had a Post Office, an Elementary School, 4 Churches, and NO Stoplights. Wouldn't change it for anything. I remember going back and forth between the Baptists and the Disciples of Christ in my early childhood. Eventually settling into the Disciples of Christ for the majority of my teenage years. It was your typical small town church. A gravel driveway that made a horseshoe around the building. Almost everyone parked in the grass, and it seems as though I was related to everyone there. Probably because I was (either through blood or marriage). We shared a Pastor with a church in Mount Airy. The only changes we experienced was doing Sunday School at 10:00am one year and 11:00am the next. Switching the times up to accommodate the other church. We took Communion EVERY Sunday, had our annual Christmas Pageant which would pack out the sanctuary, and only held services one day a week. It was simple. Which is something that I miss about Church. When was the last time it was simple?

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things that I love about being involved in a more modern Church. I like our Praise and Worship. I like the more casual way of dressing. I like preaching out of the English Standard Version of the Bible. Don't worry, I cut my teeth on the King James and served my time preaching/teaching from the "only authorized" version. I prefer the chairs in our sanctuary over the pews. All of this to say that I don't necessarily want to go backwards, but I do miss the simplicity of it all. Maybe it's because I was a kid that I never heard about the power struggles, or I wasn't as aware of the division that was created over the new Sunday School material. In fact, I was probably oblivious to all of the adult problems. Which leads to this question: Why All the Problems?

Living in rural, small town, America, finding a Church isn't difficult. I probably drive by 10 different ones on my way to Pioneer every Sunday. And for the most part all of them are different denominations. Something that I believe each of us have grown accustomed to experiencing. If you drive just a few minutes down I-81 into Wytheville you can find just about every kind of Church. All the denominations. Just about every flavor under the sun. You want your die hard traditionalists? We've got 'em. Looking for extremely contemporary? Yep, they live here too. That's right ladies and gentlemen, in a county of about 30,000 people we have just about everything you could want. With new ones coming and going all the time. The crazy part in all of this: Some people still drive outside of the county to attend Church. Maybe we don't have everything you could want after all.

There are some problems with rural, small town, America Churches. A problem that could be prevalent within the cities as well. Things that we don't like to talk about very often. Issues that we have been unwilling to address. The kind of stuff that I could write about for hours without every really solving the problem. Because the problem isn't with the Church itself. The problem is with us. Her people. We find some of the most petty things to disagree over. Rarely is it a big theological divide that separates us, although they do take place. But so many of them started out of a felt need to separate. Which bring us to this mindset that seems to be prevalent among the Churches in our area. The belief that we are in competition with one another.

There. I said it. Somebody had to do it. There is an unhealthy competition between Churches. Where we rarely celebrate the growth of one because we believe that it came at the expense of another. Which, being honest, is probably true. We tend to trade members like young boys used to trade baseball cards. Which tends to bolster this attitude of competition. We rarely share in ministry opportunities, we definitely don't cross denominational lines, and we don't fellowship with other pastors. At least not the ones that are different than us. Some of this trickles down among the members. Every now and then you may find someone who openly criticizes that "OTHER" Church, but most of the leaders aren't quite that bold. No...it's just a slight undercurrent that flows underneath it all. Preventing us from seeing the bigger picture that when one Church succeeds we all succeed.

I've talked about some of this before, but I still believe it needs to be addressed. Maybe growing up the way I did allows me to see Church a little bit different. I remember going to Vacation Bible School to two different Churches. I remember seeing all the believers on one level playing field. Sure there were differences but I never saw a reason to disdain one while upholding the other. They all felt like family. Mainly because so many of them were. Mom's side being the Baptist. Dad's side being the Disciples of Christ. I even had an Uncle (my Mom's brother) who attended the Disciples of Christ Church with us because of marriage. I never had issue looking past the label. I never felt like it was wrong for the Baptists to do well even though our Church didn't grow that much. I never saw one as being better than the other, or believed that one group was more righteous or more orthodox. It was what it was. It was people of the same faith gathering at different places worshiping the same God. Of course, as I got older I became aware of the doctrinal differences. I even sided more with Baptists than any others. However, even in my most zealous stages of believing everyone needed to believe just like me, I honored people in both places. They were, and continue to be, my family.

I continue to hear the words of Jesus and feel His heart in the matter: "This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." How incredible would it be to stand before the Lord and know that you did everything in your heart to love one another? How wonderful would it be to be known as one who unifies rather than a divides? How fitting would it be to hear that your kindness towards others, your honor of other believers, and that you love for the brotherhood is what convinced someone towards faith in Christ? I can tell you this: the world sees our competition and it is not impressed. Unity, the one thing that should be named among us, is glaringly absent and they know it. Imagine what would happen if we changed all of that? Imagine the reaction of our communities if they knew that we, the Church, stood together. With one another. Hand in hand, heart in heart. Think it would make a difference?

These are just some of my thoughts. A part of my journey. Maybe it sounds too simple. Maybe it's simplicity that we need.