I've been thinking a lot about the local church lately, and for some reason it's just been heavy on my heart. For as long as I can remember, I've sat in churches and heard some off the wall stats about how people's main complaints about the church are that the people are too hypocritical, and that they don't feel welcomed by the church. And that is normally followed up by somebody from the pulpit saying that everyone is messed up, and everyone is welcome there, no matter where you come from. And up to this point, that's exactly the truth. The congregation is filled with people from every walk of life and every background imaginable, and each and every one of them received a warm welcome when they walked through the door. And it is from that point on that I think a lot of churches lose it.
A dear friend of mine posted something online the other day that really resonated with me. It simply said "You can come as you are, but you cant stay as you are." That's what the church is all about, right? Taking people from hurting, broken backgrounds and empowering them to become new people? Yes... (And here come the big "but")... But I believe the line between "You can be changed by God" and "You can change to act like us" is blurred far too often. I think we have a tendency to say "Yes, you are absolutely welcome with open arms.. We would love to have you as part of our family!", when in reality, it's more like..
"We don't care if you're a recently divorced, slightly overweight, middle-aged guy that's going through a dry spell in life and doesn't look or dress anything like us... You are more than welcome at our Sunday morning service with the other 2,000 people! We won't judge you.. At least not publicly. We'll probably just keep that among our tight-knit group. And of course you can join a small group! But just make sure it's not one of our prayer groups... That's where we really dig deep and have our special moments. Oh, you play guitar? That's awesome! We'd love to get you connected to some other people in the church who also play guitar but can't play on stage because they don't look quite enough like they are trying to be rock stars."
I know, I know, my facetious overstatements are airing on the aggressive side. But let's be honest here.. how many times does this happen? I know I've done it. Most of the time before I even speak to a person I've already put 10 labels on the dude, only based on what he looks like. And I don't care if you completely disagree or want to argue with me... This happens every single weekend at church, no matter how much we say we "welcome people from every background".
So I guess the point I'm trying to make with the extra-long-winded-blog-vent is this:
Yes, I do believe that if you are truly going to become the man or woman that God has called you to be, "You can come as you are, but you can't stay as you are." I feel like the first part (You can come as you are) has to do with being welcomed. And I think the second (But you can't stay as you are) has to do with fulfillment. I think that can so easily be transformed by the church so that the first part remains about welcoming, but the second becomes about acceptance. "We will welcome you as you are, but we will never accept you as you are".
And when this happens, it simply gives the people who complain about unwelcoming, hypocritical Christians a good reason to do so.
B
