On being the church

The church, Jesus's betrothed, isn't always pretty. Some relish in this fact and like to point out her flaws like a group of teenage girls gossiping about the promiscuous girl in class. Overheard, we hang our heads with nothing to say but full of defensive statements. This drives me nuts, and sometimes I'm guilty of the slander, thinking my way or brand of spiritual expression is superior lacking blemishes. What a different feeling we get when we look to the admirable, noble things in others. I was reminded of this as I read from Simply Christian [N.T. Wright]:

"But there is another side to it, a side which shows all the signs of the wind and fire, of the bird brooding over the waters and bringing new life. For man, "church" means just the opposite of that negative image. It's a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It's where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It's where one group is working to help drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It's where you'll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It's where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time."

I'm glad to say that in our neighbourhood with its surrounding church expressions that statement is true. Thanks to Servants, Jacob's Well, The River Community Foursquare, St. Ciara's, UGM, Harbour Light, Potter's Place, Mission Possible and 614 for making me feel really swell about being engaged to Jesus.