Out-patient Surgery

Yesterday I had my knee scoped at an outpatient surgery center.  This morning as I lay in bed leg elevated, knee throbbing the thought hit me - the church isn't a hospital but an outpatient surgery center.  I've heard many say that the church isn't a "museum for saints but a hospital for sinners."  But the more I reflect on the story of God and the response that story necessitates the more I see the church as an outpatient surgery center.  A hospital can be a place of healing, but more often it is a place of overwhelming pathology where sickness, infection, and, despair hover like a dense fog.  Such potential toxicity fosters a sedate, sedentary environment where patients are discharged on the basis of insurance coverage rather than health.

An outpatient surgery center is by its nature a place of movement and targeted healing.  Patients come to have conditions repaired, relieved, or removed.  Though sore, in pain, and scarred patients are sent back into their lives, into their worlds to complete  their rehab and recuperation.  Their health is fully restored in and through the circumstances of life.

The gospel isn't an Amish Manifesto or a hospital name "Isolation General."  The gospel is the story of engagement where the sick are brought to the physician to be treated and sent to gather the sick.  To follow Jesus is to be an "out"-patient who discovers healing and is dis-"charged" to help others do the same.  We aren't called to the infirmary but to the community.  We are the sent out not the brought in.  We are the way and not the destination.  We are an "out"-patient surgery center and not a hospital.

Hunger Games

I am hungry.  I am hungry for less of me and more of Jesus.  I am hungry for sacrifice.  I am hungry for a community that meets people where they are...a community more concerned about following Christ than studying Christ.  I am hungry for authenticity and transparency.  I am hungry for bondages broken, addictions busted, and oppressions laid low.  I am hungry for the consumer church to stop gorging itself and start feeding the hungry and the hopeless.  I am hungry for radical obedience and uncommon self-denial.  I am hungry for danger, for risk, for un-comfortable zones.  I am hungry for the church to stop confusing tradition with traditionalism.  I am hungry for worship to be a lifestyle and not a worship style.  I am hungry for a movement and not a methodology.   

I am hungry for the kingdom of God.

Christian Cliches

It has been nine years since I became a Christian.  In my near decade long pursuit to follow Jesus I have come across a number of Christian cliches that get tossed around with little if any push back.  Many of these phrases have a second-cousin-twice-removed like connection to a Scripture verse or passage which gives the impression they are "Biblical" i.e. the Protestant litmus test.  It may be phrases like: accept Jesus into your heart; washed (or cleansed) by the blood of Jesus; seek God's will for your life; anything using "righteousness;" we agree in prayer...; seek God's face; the Lord spoke to my heart; get into the word; turn it over to the Lord; or ...Spirit filled... 

Of late the cliche that most troubles me is "personal relationship with Jesus."  You can't be among a group of "Bible believing," "Evangelical," "Christ centered" Protestants for more than 30 seconds without the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" getting launched into the hearing sphere.  Lo ye dare to question thee phrase in public or thy may be smite(d).  But honestly I have no idea what people mean by the phrase.  Are Jesus and I buddies?  Are we boyfriend/girlfriend?  Are we roomates?  Do we bowl together on Tuesdays?  I'm afraid in our me-driven, experiential, consumer culture, "personal relationship with Jesus" looks more like Twilight without the fangs - "Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Let's be immortal forever xoxo." 

When Jesus became a person God became personal and because of that we can personally encounter God.  But the encounter is and must always be on God's terms and not our own.  God is at center of our encounter and he always makes the first move.  Any pursuit of a "personal relationship" with Jesus that seeks emotional highs and new frontiers of experience ultimately puts "me" at the center of the relationship (and I think that might be idolatry).  Truly encountering God may require despair, crisis, and the utter absence of God's perceived presence.  It may mean the implosion of all our cliches.  God forbid, it may mean fewer hand-in-hand walks down the beach with Jesus and more deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.