I always have a hard time when I go to a Ice Cream place like "Graeters," "Handles" or "Cold Stone Creamery." I can never decide which flavor is the best. Sometimes I get lucky and I am craving a certain kind of ice Cream, other times I am at loss as to what I need. There are times I feel adventurous and will try something new. Usually I choose something with berries or nuts in it because that is my favorite.
What about church? What flavor is the best? In our culture today there are so many different flavors to choose from that it is confusing for people. The questions that come up are: "Does it have contemporary music or traditional?" "Is the 'dress code' dress-up, casual or it doesn't matter?" "Is there a lot of multi-media or not?" "Do they have Sunday School or ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship)?" "Is it a megachurch or is it a small family type of church?"
While all these are questions may matter when it comes to preference, these are not the right questions? These questions do not make a church a church. There is one thing for certain. When I go and get ice cream, which I do not do very often, I sometimes decide I am going to be healthy. I will get sugar free or fat-free. Every time, I am never satisfied. Why? Because it is not real ice cream.
Whoever invented ice cream never intended it to be free from sugar and heavy cream (thus the name ice "cream"). Anything else is just an impostor. When God created the church he had something very specific in mind. The church would be a body of believers who: 1) Were in love with Jesus and His mission, 2) Loved people who were far from God, 3) Lead those who were far from God into a relationship with Jesus, 4) Lead people to be more like Jesus in every part of their life, and 5) Lead people to lead others far from God into a relationship with Jesus.
There are other things like authentic community, prayer and service. My point is, when we look at churches we judge the flavor on things that really don't matter. The most important thing when it comes to the best flavor of church is that it is fulfilling the mission of a church, that it is a real church. Any time I have gotten ice cream and it is real ice cream I have never been disappointed.
3 comments:
I like this analogy about the church. I would even take it a step further. I think that sometimes the church is right on line with the idea of the church. You have eveyone going in the same direction (everyone is eating and enjoying real ice cream), but then all of the sudden it is not good enough. We get consumed with adding sprinkles, or hot fudge or carmel, or crushed oreo's. And soon the church is all about what pleases us as a consumer instead of truly releshing what the church is really about. We start thinking "How can I tweek this to make it a little better for me", maybe some people don't like hot fudge, or.... insert random topping here.... but thats really not the point the point is are we really doing/being what the Church was really meant to be (real ice cream)?
Clay
Especially confusing for many that know very little about what 'church' really means. I'm fairly sure even after you've come to believe and even be baptized it seems some still aren't sure about the whole church thing. I've seen and talked to many that when asked "why NV" (that being our church - New Venture) and hearing things such as solid biblical teaching, etc. I take these as better than the music, dress style, media, etc.
Very right about taking into consideration our preferences over the intended meaning of church. But hey, just imagine if we couldn't drive far - let's say the price of gas skyrocketed... boy that would change our preferences especially given how often many of us drive a fair distance to get to our church. I know we drive about 10 miles to get to the place for Sunday.
Let's not forget that the people are really the church ... "the called out ones".
P.S. Don't you mean Graeters? :) I used to live in Cincy...
cj- Thanks for correcting me on the Graerters thing as you can see it is corrected.
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