What a mess

This new church is messy. Almost every new person I meet I'm interrupting, whether it's by knocking on their door, calling, meeting them at Bagel Boys, whatever. Whenever we invite people to do something with The River, we're asking them to choose that over something else. When we ask for offerings, we're asking them to choose to give money here over buying something.

These are not simple choices. They are complicated, involving lots of reasons, rationales and whatnot. No matter how many times I ask the same thing, I never get the same answer. Everyone is different, with their own life and their own reasons for making the choices they do, and there's so much stuff in people's lives that when I try and get my brain around it, I just can't figure it out. The whole thing just seems like a big mess.

The great shock, though, was realizing that the last church I was at didn't seem messy. I wondered why. What was different about that community? The conclusion I came to was that that last community was just as messy, and since it had more people it was probably messier! The difference was that I didn't know it, because it looked neat. We had programs that ran smoothly. We had worship that went smoothly. The office and staff ran smoothly. All of it was nice, neat, and it looked tidy.

I now realize that that was a facade. The people were just as messy, it only looked neat because the programs looked neat. I don't know whose fault that is, or that it's really anyone's fault. But it seems to me that if you make 'church' equate to 'programs', then it will look neat and tidy if you have neat and tidy programs. Meanwhile, the people themselves may be a mess, but no one will ever know. Some like it that way.

Me, I do not like it that way. I don't think that's the way Jesus lived, and I don't think that's how he wants us to live. Jesus welcomed the interruption of people's messes, and even sought them out. His ministry was not programs; near as I can tell, he never ran one. His ministry was conversation and relationships. His ministry was people, in all their messiness.

So I'll take the mess. I'll take the mess over the neat, tidy, facade that all is well. I'll take it because that's who we are. Messy, broken, confused, people- myself included. That's humanity for ya. To pretend otherwise is to deny who we are, and puts us in a place where we don't need God because we can keep things neat by ourselves.

Well, I need God. I am a mess. So is my new church. And I wouldn't want it any other way.