questioning ecclesiology in the wilderness

I didn’t always like going to church, but when I became a minister I felt like I had to go. Growing up in North Carolina made it easy to be a Christian. Children went to Sunday School every Sunday even if your parents just dropped you off then joined you later for “big” church. You didn’t have to stay in “big” church long. The minister welcomed people, prayed a prayer and everyone sang two hymns. During the second hymn all the children came to the first few rows to hear a special message just for them. I cannot remember any specific lesson taught during these moments. I remember it being a time when bible stories were told. Stories about Jesus that we had just heard in Sunday School were retold with the minister’s explanation tagged on the end. After the children’s time in worship, we were led back to the Sunday School rooms for Children’s Church. Perhaps, this is where the idea of “church” was formed. Church, for children, meant sitting back in the Sunday School rooms waiting for our parents to finish whatever church meant to them. Children’s church consisted of playing “Bible” Football or “Bible” Charades or “Bible” Baseball. It was all knowledge-based. Therefore, church meant knowing something.

I wanted to go to church. More specifically, I wanted to go to Sunday School. Every quarter there was a special assembly held in the fellowship hall to honor attendance in Sunday School. Pins were awarded for perfect attendance. I cannot remember in what increments awards were given, but I certainly remember that I earned the “one-year” pin. However, it was a lie. It was not a lie that I told or my parents, but my Sunday School teacher fudged the books a little in my favor.

One winter Sunday morning, I remember both of my parents coming into my room. After waking me up, they informed me that it had snowed all night and that we might not be able to drive to church safely. Knowing that my sights were set on the attendance award, they asked very gently if it would be okay to stay home. I agreed. The following Sunday the Sunday School teacher asked me if I would have come to Sunday school if it had not snowed. I said yes. She changed the attendance book and some time later, I was awarded a pin for perfect attendance at Sunday school for one year. And so I was taught another lesson about church. Church meant achieving something.

These are not bad memories, but ones that come to the forefront of my mind as I think now about the nature of church. Is church about knowing something? Is church about achieving something? For many, I am afraid it is. Church is about knowing AND agreeing with a statement of faith. Many use wording such as, “We believe in….” or “We confess…” But, isn’t it true that many of these statements of faith could be said, “We know this about God,” or “We know that about the Bible,” and so forth? The implication, then, is that they know something I (you?) do not. I am not interested in that. Furthermore, the Christian life itself is characterized by achieving something (e.g., a better relationship with God, a revelation of life’s purpose, or the satisfaction on Sunday afternoon that I actually went to church and everyone saw me there and I can speak all next week with the piety of the Pharisees).

I wait for an experience, a revelation, a vision of what church means.

Like the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, I am afraid. I am terrified that what I might find along this journey is not what I set out to see. I’m afraid that what I might actually see is a church that is radically different than the way it looks now.

Is the “promised land” just another place to rest in our unfaithfulness until we’re wiped out by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, or whoever comes along with a bigger army than ours?