Heavy Stuff.

When it comes right down to it, some of the things that we are called to face in this life are just heavy. Right down heavy. I just got off the phone with my childhood best friend, and she and her family are facing some heavy stuff. And I mean heavy. It was good to reconnect and to support her, but I can't help but feel her burden. And it....is.....heavy.

And after all, isn't that what life is all about? Sharing each other's burdens. Isn't that what God calls us to? So while my heart is heavy and my mind is concerned and I am feeling quite distracted from my own life right now (which is a good thing!), I am also feeling blessed that God calls us to be His hands and hearts to each other in times of need.

For I believe this to the depths of me.................The church is not a building. The church is not the attenders at a particular place on a Sunday morning. It is not a group of people who call themselves "members" or "attenders"........it is not a group of people led by a pastor under a particular denomination and a particular constitution.......The church is what happens in the day-to-day as followers of Christ share experiences and get dirty in the hurts and burdens of life.

I get so frustrated when people and writers and pastors and professors argue over whether "THE CHURCH" includes places like Christian colleges and social activist organizations and para-church organizations. Or when people get all tied up in knots regarding whether people give their money to a particular church or whether they instead choose to give it to a variety of other active Christian organizations that spread the Gospel. Aren't these the wrong types of questions? I do not think in black-and-white that way. THE CHURCH IS YOU AND ME. The church living and breathing......it is about people reaching out to people in the name of Christ....in whatever context.....whatever the need......no matter the hour.......no matter what age you are........whether you are part of an established group or not.........whatever the building (or maybe no building at all)......What our society views as "church" is totally a social construction. The church, as I read my Bible, is people in different walks of life and in different roles and in different ways reaching out to the lost. Sinful people, redeemed by Christ's blood, being His hands and feet to the world. I would argue that very little of that happens in a lecture-style meeting on Sunday mornings.

Now before you think I am "anti-church", let me just clarify. I believe that Christian people need to belong to a local body of believers where they can be encouraged and challenged and fed and held accountable. I believe that God created us as social beings and that we need each other to fulfill His calling. However, I think that in the effort to "do church" and "be church", we often lose sight of the spirit of God's calling.

And so, today as I am choosing to help carry my friends' burden, I believe that the church is in action and that Jesus Christ is being praised. I am humbled that God would use me, in all my faults and shortcomings and sinfulness and pride. To Him be the total Glory.

Off the soapbox.....GO BULLDOGS!