Sunday, September 18, 2011

Troublemaker Series: #1 Would You Accept Me In Your Church?

It's been a long, busy week as we've offered the fall consignment sale at the church. 40% of the proceeds go to missions, so we go through this huge ordeal that attracted 256 consignors and thousands of shoppers. We sold over 18,000 items, and will net a nice amount for mission use. Irony of ironies, the Sunday School class I lead has been studying the Gospel of John, and last week we were in Chapter 2 with today's lesson being on Jesus driving the money changers out of Temple. :) Since church members haven't stepped up with checks to make the consignment sale obsolete I guess we'll continue to do the sale until Jesus or the Spirit moves us to make up that funding some other way.

So, I'm really tired, a good tired I guess, but still rather beat up after a long, demanding week week. At the same time, perhaps because of my fatigue, I'm finding a number of good questions and ideas have come to mind today that are a challenge to me and the church. So, there's no reason to sugar coat it or varnish the truth, but live with the tough challenge. Thus, begins what I'll call my "Troublemaker Series." It's not a bad thing for Jesus to confront individuals or the church, so I'll just place these challenges out there for dialogue and see what happens.

Despite some real positives about offering a consignment sale I'm not sure it's the best way to be about the work of the church. Yet the consignment sale is a huge attraction that engages many, many people from the community (read this as 60 mile radius!). These are all the people you see at the community store, yet not in my/your community church. At least a dozen times during the sale, I found myself in conversation with shoppers as they congratulated us on a cool concept (the WIN/WIN benefits shoppers/consignors/church/plus mission partners who receive the donated items). Those talkative shoppers went on to discuss their need to find a new church.

These were very honest conversations as they'd talk out loud about some issue in their life and how their current church just wasn't meeting their needs. These weren't angry people, or negative folk in conversation, but all seemed to be people who were swept up in our experience and wanting that to be part of an honest, real, engaging church in their life every week.

Get the picture? They were feeling that pinch between where they were, realizing they couldn't create that, and wanting to be part of a church family.

Then, without fail, they'd come to a moment in the conversation where they'd ask a crucial question- put most succinctly by one shopper- "Will you really accept me?"

Hold on to that for a moment, and think of the variety of folk in your community. Get specific and ask it from the view point of someone of a different ethnicity than you...
-someone from a different socio-economic group than you and your church...
- someone with physical handicap or challenges...
-someone from a different political viewpoint than you and your church...
-someone who is homosexual...
- someone with an addiction- past or present...
- someone with ongoing mental health challenges...
- or perhaps you think of someone else in your community that God has placed in your life somehow that needs a family of faith.

Think of a line of "shoppers" in your community stepping up to your church asking you that question. How would you respond? Would you be telling the truth? And would your church be able to follow through with those great intentions?

While I'm rather certain what Jesus would do I wonder if our churches will take the risk and accept someone into the life of a congregation that the Spirit brings to us.

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