A Church for The Church

I have been wrestling, another thing I aparently do a lot of, with the purpose of 'a church' in 'the church'.

NOTE: I use the indefinite pronoun (a) to refer to nay given building, organization and/or group of people; the definite pronoun (the) to refer to the 'spiritual Israel' that makes up all people who have listened to Jesus and are trying to follow him. This is a traditional and, in some ways, inadequate way of talking about things; yet, in dealing with a practical issue, we need practical definitions.

So what is the purpose of a church? I wonder if some of the anti-church bias we're starting to see (everyone is interested in small groups and house churches) has to do with putting unrealistic expectations on a church as an organization. We want it to be our social outlet, or center for teaching, our center for worship, our center for formation, the regional headquarters for evangelism and, for some people, for the 'culture war'. We want it to do so much, and when it doesn't provide these things, we get frustrated. We feel let down.

But are these expectations reasonable? How much can we expect one or two dedicated people to do? And how much of what we depend on a church, a pastor, a ministry team to do ought we to do for ourselves?

I have started looking at a church more like the hub of a network. It provides access to services that I need; it isn't the service, it doesn't control the service, but I may come there looking for it. Along these lines, I have started to consider attending a local Catholic church. I went to a Lutheran church for a while, and I enjoyed the worship very much; the liturgy is powerful to me. However, this 'a' church was not the center for spiritual growth and social interaction that I hoped it would be. I have now found these services elsewhere (Enoch's Path, a local 'Jesus Community'). However, I am now missing what I found at the Lutheran church - an embodyment of our Christian life in worship, the liturgy.

I can envision a church that functions as a network; this church would connect me with people who think like I do, who wrestle with the questions I wrestle with; this church would lead worship in many different ways, perhaps in many different places - in as many ways as there are people who wish to express themselves differently (including the liturgy, I hope!); this church would form social networks, connect people who wanted to serve in similar ways, even if the people were outside the church. Why doesn't this church exist? Why is every church so convinced that they have every right answer, that they already meet every need?

Father, help me to see you everywhere I look. It's so easy to complain; it's so easy to find little things to complain abut; maybe I'm being too picky. I still think I'll contact the local Catholic church.

There are people out there?!

O my - people read my blog! I feel somewhat obligated to post to it now...

Hopefully I won't get boring, and I'll actually have the time.