Church

Sundays always make me think about church. Not just "going to church" (which I do every Sunday these days, Mom), but "the church." How sometimes I think we just don't get it. How we don't need to be cool to have community, instead we need to have real community and "cool" will just sorta happen.

I pray everyday for a church planting movement in North America. I've been praying this way since I first heard of the concept. I heard about thousands of churches made up of mostly new Christians popping up in countries around the world and my initial thought was "Why isn't this happening here?" My conclusion: North American churches just aren't born that way. It's not who we are. This does not equal me saying we should be this way. I'm just stating a fact. How many of our churches are started with intentional splitting worked into the mission statement? Of those that do, how many actually follow through?

I recently finished the book "The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch. One of my professors indulged my need to study the edges of Christian thought (or at least the edge of what I usually study) and let me read it for a book review focused on transcultural communication. One concept I picked up was "sneezable" church. Churches that spread wide and fast because they are theologically centered on the most important parts of the gospel and easily reproducible across cultures. How I wish...

I'm sorry if this has seemed disjointed or incomplete, but sometimes our deepest longings are those that are hardest to express.