Hi, my name is 'Mr. Church'

And I have so many siblings and cousins, we are very proud of who we are.

You may see us in every nook and corner of America and all over the world.

In some places we are underground but in America we are mostly overground and we think it's okay either ways.

We stand there in various shapes, styles and names.

Some of us are dwarfs and some are tall and fat. The more fatter we are, the more successful our care-taker is.

All of us have care-takers called - pastors, priests, rabbis etc and they all come in different flavors depending on which family there were born or who converted them later on.

Have you seen Jesus's statues in us? Aren't they beautiful? Some of our Jesus' are bleeding, some are blessing, some are gloomy and depressed. But as long it has a beard and a divine light around its head, it is Jesus.

Some people love us and some hate us, but we really don't care.

Sometimes we think that it's funny people build us so beautiful but use only for few hours a week and pay mortgages year-round. LOL! Well, may be it isn't that funny!

Some of us are 'mega' and it usually depends on the charisma of our care-taker.

People build gymnasiums, swimming pools, prayer rooms, cafes, delis etc inside us and the more entertainment, the more happy the residents are. Isn't that cool? Oh! by the way, we love the poor.

Some of us are like iMax theaters - cushion chairs with cup holders on it, huge screens for the play. We don't mind if you take a nap sitting in our comfy chairs or enjoy a cup of coffee while watching the play. Hey, after all we are there to make you comfortable!

Is your marriage in trouble? Come to us, we have marriage seminars!

Would you like to learn how to raise your kids in Christian discipline? You are welcome to attend our 'Parenting lessons on strict christian worldview'.

Do you aspire to become a leader (and ultimately a care-taker of one of us)? Come on in, we have leadership seminars!

We have solutions for pretty much any problems people face - social, political, cultural, behavioral, you name it.

Are you confused whom to cast your vote? Listen to our pastor!
Are you confused whom to marry?Attend our youth ministry, you sure will find your soul mate there. But don't mess with the freedom there, we are against abortions.

Some of our pastors might talk about Jesus and His love, grace, blah blah, but don't worry if those things don't work, we have enough other tools and techniques to make you a good christian.

Sitting in our pews, you will feel the peace jesus offered, because we have dim lights, slow music, comfy chairs and air-conditioned halls.

Some of us are 'Full Gospel', some are Half Gospel and some are No Gospel.

Would you like to experience a little more 'glory' while you worship? Pick the ones with stained glasses and distinguished arts in it.

After all you are free to pick us. You have Freedom!

By the way, are you too lazy to wake up early on Sundays? The sermons preached by our pastor is available on DVD for a minimum donation of $60. Who can beat that price?

If you are first time visiting, feel free to pass that offering plate to the next person; but if you are a member, well, you know...

Most of us have visions. If you want to know our vision, check our website.

Some of our siblings and cousins fight and don't like each other, but don't worry we all believe the same thing.

Now, you are not a big fan of those slow hymns? Looking for a little 'high'? No worries, some of us have rock and roll worship, you will surely enjoy those. Feel free to use the freedom to dance and feel good.

Too shy to dance and worship? We provide dance lessons and worship practices. Make use of those free classes. They are absolutely free. There is no catch.

Are you someone who likes to dress up and show off? We have both contemporary and traditional services. Contemporary is 'come as you are' (blue jeans ok), traditional is more of suit and tie. Pick the one you like.

Have you never been to one of us before? There are 'seeker friendly' ones. Check them out! They are pretty cool. And, hey, pls. don't forget to fill out the visitor cards. It's very important to us.

Some of us are very politically correct and post modern, we accept pretty much any ideas under the sun. How cool is that?

You don't like the shape of some of us? Check out our newly introduced 'home' ones. You will feel like at home.

We usually operate around our pastors, who are usually very smart. We don't exist without them, so respect them, ok?

The school crisis!

My wife and I still go back and forth on the issue of whether we should send our kids to public or private school. When they were babies we always thought that we would send them to only a private school, preferably a Christian School. My daughter is going to be 5 years in next June and we are currently in the mode of researching various schools. At some point, economically thinking, I thought public school would be fine. Our school district isn’t bad as well. Then as I thought more about it, I kind of backed off a bit; because I didn’t want my kids to be taught that we are evolved from Monkeys!

Anyways long story short, yesterday I took some time to research some Christian schools near by. One of my search criterion was a school without a denomination affiliation. It boiled down to just one school finally which is about 6 miles away from home. I was excited about everything I read in their website and we were going to see if we can pay a visit to see the facility and meet the staff.

To my surprise, my wife, as she read further on their website today, found out the below requirement:

[Name of the school] exists as an aid to Christian parents in their God-given responsibility of training their children in the way of the Lord. To this end, the school requires that parents be confessing Christians to assure consistent mutual goals between family and school. Parents and students will be required to sign a parent-student agreement that indicates agreement with the doctrinal statement and promises to maintain a Christian lifestyle in the home. In addition, a recommendation form from the family’s pastor is also required.

The parents must support the policies of the school. This is most important in teaching the Biblical principles the school is founded upon, but also in the area of discipline, schoolwork, and parent/teacher support.

Ouch!

I am faced with a huge challenge now: I have no family pastor and I don't know how to make one!

I am not a member of any church organization.
I have no family pastor.
I am not a church-goer.
I am not religious.
I don't tithe.
I don't do 'ministry'.
I am not part of a 'small group'.
I don't follow a set of 'laws'.

But,

Jesus loves me.
He gave His life for me.
I have the Spirit of God living in me.
I am a child of the Most High.
I am a citizen of heaven.
I am righteous and holy in Christ.
I have eternal life.
I am fully forgiven.
I am placed in the Body of Christ (Church) by Him.
I am clothed with Christ.
Jesus is my Shepperd, Bridegroom and Friend.
I am complete in Him.
And, I can't prove any of these!

Can I still be considered as a Christian? Would they accept me as a Christian? Who can give me a certificate of recommendation?

Some more "church" talk!

It's interesting to see people spending a lot of time and energy to debate, discuss and figure out whether we should attend institutionalized churches or "house churches". How did a institutionalized church become institutionalized? Was it because it was in a special building? Or was it because people implemented their agendas, knowledge of half truths, ideas, personal preferences, rituals, falsehood etc? If so, how much it takes to have a "house church" institutionalized? It wouldn't take much. It's even easier because you have more 'control' there.

Some people all of a sudden get influenced by a "liberal demon" and jump from Presbyterian to Wynyard or Emergent and think that they are 'free' now. They aren't. The only difference is now they are thinking the Emergent church is "the" church or the Wynyard is "the" church (BTW, I have nothing against any of these organizations in particular). None of these are churches, there are merely some organizations. And yes, there are people under those roofs who are truly part of the invisible, universal, ever growing church of Jesus Christ.

None of these "movements" are going to resolve anything. Doesn't matter how frustrated you were when you were in the Baptist church and how "happy" you are in the Pentecostal church. The happiness we get when we jump from one building to another is not really the happiness God supplies. It is just the happiness coming from a sense of adventure, that you think that you are doing something "different" - like bungee jumping.

The REAL adventure is not jumping from one church to another. The real adventure is losing all our securities, which includes people-provided, church-provided, community-provided, clergy-provided and doctrine-provided securities and abandon ourselves into the hands of a perfectly loving God and hang in there, see what HE does in our life. That to me is adventurous.

The more we talk about "church", it shows how less we care about the "Head". The moment people come to know that I am a Christian, the next question is where do I go to church. Give me a break! My wife lies to people that we attend a non-denominational church just to avoid further questions. And I am teaching her to tell the truth! And she says she doesn't know how to give a proper answer why as Christians we do not park our bodies in a building on Sundays. I see her point because it isn't that easy to explain.

I want to stop jumping from one building to another building, because when I do it, all I am thinking is about the building. What can it offer to me? I am thinking about ME. I love ME! I love the fact that when I have flood in my basement there is a church member dispatched by the pastor to help me drain water. But now I am obliged to do the same thing when he has a flood. That's not selfless love. That's people working for each other. They are just not paying any monetary wages, instead they pay with their work. For doing the dispatching pastor gets his pay check. So, where is love in the whole deal?

Paul said: Love is not self-seeking.

I think love is not love if it's not selfless. That is the problem of building-bound spirituality, it is almost impossible to extend and receive selfless love while we are bombarded with building issues - how to maintain it, how to grow it, how to beatify it, how to make it more marketable etc.

I have criticized the 'building' I left but I think the issue was that I didn't really know the love of Christ the way I know it today (I am not claiming I know it fully, I will never know until I see him face to face). It was more of a intellectual understanding of that particular church's doctrines. I wasn't really free! It was my own struggle while I was still bound.

I thought moving the "worship" from that building to my home would change everything. It changes nothing! You move your bondage from a special building to a "house church" thinking that you are very trendy and adventurous, I am telling you it changes nothing. What changes us is the truth. The truth that Jesus loves us regardless of whether we are sleeping in the comfort of our bed on Sunday morning or we are sitting in a pew. It is the love what transforms us, not our changing of parking places.

As we get hold of this love, the "building" becomes a nonissue. The temptation to criticize all the "churches" subsides. Our focus changes. The source of our joy is no more depended on the beauty of the songs sung by the choir. And since it comes from the right source, it stays, it's consistent and we know it's priceless. No buildings can ever give us this, only Jesus can.

Church talk

I really don't have any encouraging words today. Over the last few days, I am kind of in the valley side of my spiritual energy. It isn't that any of my beliefs were challenged or anything like that but I am just saddened by the fact that the enormous number of people rejecting the plain truth of Gospel. It isn't the doctrinal differences I am talking about, but the heart and spirit of the core message of Gospel.

All I hear the most is nothing but the "church talk".

In the midst all the "church talk", it's interesting to see that how we skip over the "head". Apart from "head", there is no "body". People brainstorm: How can we save the church? How can we re-form it? How can we change it? How can we grow it? How can we serve it? How can we re-charge it? How can we revive it?

But, the body functions NOT within and of itself but it functions solely with a proper, dynamic attachment to the Head. The church today is like a chicken with head cut off. It makes a lot of motions and noises, but in reality it's dying. Is it enough to treat the symptoms by getting more people to serve, dedicate and commit? I think, when individual members get into the right connection to the head, through the wonder of TRUTH, the church would naturally become more vibrant, pulsing and free.

It's like a change to a society, which is possible only through changing individuals (one person at a time), so as with church, which is nothing but people. We talk about the 'body of Christ', but really, what value body has if it's not glued to it's head to receive LIFE? After all, Isn't church to be an expression of Life? Not the headless-chicken kind of life, but the real, authentic, hearty life.

We keep talking about serving, service and charity but honestly, I think, we can give only what we receive. Life of a branch is about receiving, everything else is quite natural.

Anyways, I am just wondering, in the midst of all the plans, programs, visions, ideas, techniques, funds, debates, busyness, denominations, theologies, doctrines, principles, are we missing the obvious? The simplicity and purity of Christ's wonderful, unchanging Gospel?

I am talking about the basics...

Rethinking 'Church'

When God started to make things clear to me (or when I finally started to listen to Him) about His unconditional love and grace, my first reaction was over-reaction. I was angry at the religion. I wanted to ask those who deceive the people with legalism, why they do that? I wanted to fight the heresy they teach. I was annoyed by the processed sermons they preach. I became intolerant towards legalism. I wanted to be in the middle of it and fight it. I tried, tried and tried. I was treated as someone deceived by a ‘bad theology’. I was told that ‘grace alone’ is dangerous. I was asked to read the ‘what we believe’ page of their website. I was a subject of their prayer, so that God’s wrath won’t fall up on me. I was told that the New Covenant is a continuation of Old Covenant. Finally it came to a point where either they will excommunicate me, or I should stop fighting. Then finally I left by my own.

Like Aida said in her blog, grace really is disruptive . It made my life upside down. It made disruption in my own life and in the life of the ones around me. It is so very difficult to hide the grace of God.

Sure enough, I wasn’t mature enough to take it lightly about fighting legalism with my own energy. I felt deceived for many years. I was seeing church as an entity where people workout in a spiritual gymnasium. I thought, without such a place to ‘work out’ we become nonspiritual. I couldn't think of a spiritual life without it. There I have seen people who think the church-potatoes are more spiritual. People who think skipping a meeting is a sin. Everybody operating on the basis of fear while struggling to put up a peace smile on their faces. People who fear demons, pastors, unbelievers and pretty much everything other than the ones in their own ‘sect’. Sorry if it sounds like a cult. It's not intentional.

The question is should we fight it? I think there is a difference in fighting legalism and opposing legalism. Fighting can produce reformation but ultimately the result could be just another system. We don’t want to replace one system for another. I respect the historical reformations but at the same time wondering if it just erupted another system. Instead of Cathedrals, now we have churches (assemblies, chapel, etc). I am tempted to fight it but it could also mean that it is still controlling me. Fighting could be a sign that I am still in it. Shouldn't we just rest in the all sufficiency of His grace? And if legalism come in our way, just oppose it? I don't mean being inactive. In fact I have never seen a person who is walking in grace being inactive.

'Systems' are generated from fear and it tries to give people a false sense of security. But if there is a bit of fear, the love is not perfected. We can’t perfect in love, unless we see the One who loved us while we were yet sinners.

Systems/Organizations miss the majors and they end up concentrating on the minors. One of the most wonderful Bible study advice I have ever received is – majoring in majors as opposed to majoring in minors. Minors such as building, music, dress, programs, meetings, committees as opposed to the majors such as Jesus, Grace, Faith, Love, Hope, Forgiveness, Acceptance, Discipleship.

Is it time to rethink church? Is it time to rethink community? Is it time to rethink fellowship? Does it have to be organized? Does it have to be planned? Does it have to be formal?

In a hard way I am learning that we can be spiritual without the organ playing and lights dim. I was so used to it and it required a lot of unlearning. I am still in the process of unlearning. Religion has such a power to bind us. It never ever ever can set us free. Music don’t set us free, programs don’t set us free, miracles don't set us free,... But it is THE truth that truly set us free!

I am no more bound in the four walls of religion. Thank you Jesus! I am in a risky ocean of Grace. Yes it is risky, disruptive, dangerous but it is worth taking that risk. Not that I was courageous to take such a risk, but it was Him doing it, it was Him who showed me His radical grace, it was Him who loved me perfectly while I was still a sinner. There is a lot more to explore in this great ocean, there is excitement, there are wonders and miracles. (Warning:There is also pain involved in the process of walking by faith). But it is sweet, it is so freeing, it is so securing in His love. Are you ready to dive in, leaving the securities of your religion?