Free Gas for Your Think Tank — Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement

Bloganuary writing prompt

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

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I grew up in a place and time called the Bible Belt where the majority of people had a family tradition of going to church, but my parents didn’t. Adults would often ask them, “Where do you go to church?” but they didn’t. Sometimes kids would ask me that question and I would be embarrassed to admit I didn’t go to church anywhere.

The odd thing was that I believed in God and talked to Him every night for as long as I could remember. I wanted my family to attend church and would beg my parents for us to all go. Finally, when I was 10 or so, they started regularly attending a church. I was shocked. The Sunday service was boring, and everybody acted like God was a million miles away, but now I was stuck attending a meeting that made me feel further away from God. (Once there was a quick small earthquake during church that didn’t cause any damage, but a lot of the attendees ran out of the building and didn’t come back. Meanwhile, the preacher just kept on with the religious program.)

When I went to college I stopped going to church. It was there that I met some students who were thrilled about Jesus and through their testimonies I encountered and grew to know Christ personally living and working inside of me. Decades later I’m stilling enjoying and seeking to follow and obey the living Jesus every day!

After meeting the risen Jesus I tried to go to church but it always felt like a formalized step-down from my daily personal relationship with Him. I eventually went to seminary and became a preacher thinking I could help lead a church to lay down formalism and human programming and train people to follow and obey the living Jesus instead of just passively hearing a sermon.

I read a blog post this morning that said that Jesus “wants nothing to do with the church industrial complex—ancient or present-day.” After decades of trying to compliantly fit into church and other times of trying to reform it from within, I’ve finally moved beyond it and focused instead on listening to and being led by God Spirit instead of by religious formalism. I finally laid down the tradition of going to an institutional church.

Here’s my alternative. I stopped calling the body of Christ the church and shifted to the word Jesus used. Church is a religious organization that claims to be based on the Bible. However, if Jesus “wants nothing to do with the church industrial complex–ancient or present-day,” it must not be what He said He is building.

The word Jesus is quoted as using in Matthew 16 is: “I will build My ‘ekklesia.’” Ekklesia is the proper name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities where anyone present could share what was on their heart. It was a participatory, interactive gathering, not a classroom setting. By building His ekklesia Jesus wants to create an environment where people can actually hear, see, and personally experience God’s Spirit working in and through each another, not just hear a lecture about religion.

Now I look for opportunities to hang out with other Christ-followers in an environment where we are free to openly pray together and share with each other what Jesus is saying and doing in our lives. I find such opportunities several times a week in small groups (of me and one or more other people). We sometimes meet in person, sometimes on the phone, and sometimes on the internet. In such an environment I’m thrilled to see Jesus living and working in and through my brothers and sisters in Christ. The tradition of not attending formal religious churches has set me free to follow and obey Jesus and help other people do so as well.

People matter.
Treat them well.
When you disagree
Do it kindly,
With empathy,
And their heart
Will open.
And soon you’ll see
Your shared humanity.