Half Truth - Maybe?

As you know, if you've read my unfaithfully-maintained rattlingz for any length of time, I pass by several churches on my drive to work.  Churches with prolost (my coinage for opposite of profound) sayings on their signs.  This morning another such pithless phrase appeared:

Church - it isn't just somewhere you go, it's something you do.

Half right, I guess, depending on your point of view.  First, let's assume that the signmaker intended to use Merriam/Webster's (online) 3rd definition of church - the one that talks about a body of believers.  In that case, "church" is not somewhere you go.  But neither is it something you do.  It's someone you are.  Church as something to do is church that, instead of meeting, gathering, or getting together, has meetings, gatherings, and get-togethers.  That subtle shift in semantics makes a world of difference in practice.  Meeting, gathering, getting together, and so on, are things that happen among the flock as we move along the path the Good Shepherd chooses.  "Having" a meeting or a gathering or a get-together is something that happens because a human shepherd says it must.

If we take Merriam/Webster's 1st definition of church, it is just somewhere we go - it's a building.  2nd definition is an organizational hierarchy.  Dictionaries don't arbitrarily choose the order of definitions - they are listed that way because of frequency of use.  A building's hard, confining walls, and the governmental hierarchies that echo those confinements, all spawn a church of going and doing.  Taking church outside the building does not guarantee freedom from "the box."  Because the top-down, one-man-has-it-all, executive-senior-pastor model simply makes the walls invisible.  It does not tear them down.

What is needed is true plurality of leadership - leadership that meets to encourage each other.  Leadership that is simply a matter of following the lead of the Good Shepherd, whether you find it in his words, his face, or the sight of the butt of the sheep in front of you who is also following the Shepherd.  This is the gist of Hebrews 10's admonition to not abandon gathering together - gather together to be encouragers of each other.  With whatever gifts we may have.  It is not a matter of one or even a few leaders encouraging the poor sheep who can't do anything for themselves.  In fact, the encouragement to continue gathering is right in the whole Hebrews salad (10:19-25 - lots of "let us" - nyuk, nyuk).  Not, "let a preacher tell you how to ...," but "let us" draw close to God, and so on.

Our gatherings reflect who we are.  Do they show us as people who "go to church," people who "do church," or a people who "are church?"  If we "go" or "do," we remain discreet individuals, able to choose where, when, and how we exist as part of the Flock, the Body, the Bride, of Christ.  We choose what degree of joinder or separation is comfortable for us.  If we "are," then those issues of joining and separating are moot.  Sheep are not sheep because they join the flock.  Sheep are sheep because they are born that way.  The flock is a natural extension of their "sheep-ness."

I'm struck to the heart by this view of Amos 5:21-24  from The Message:

I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.

Ouch.