Long ago, the church had an expression: extra ecclesia nulla salus: “outside the church there is no salvation.” Nowadays we gasp at that statement. It seems so arrogant and heavy-handed.
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We treat church gatherings like the waiting room for a job interview and try to look as competent and impressive as we can. Instead, churches should feel more like the waiting room for a doctor, where people assume everyone else there is sick and needs help.
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What kind of church do you think Jesus would attend today? Big? Small? Liturgical? Charismatic? Would he want smoke machines or not? Would he prefer the beautiful, stained glass cathedral or the humble pig pen converted into a church?
Perhaps a better question is: would Jesus enjoy attending your church today?
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Why do you go to church?
If you were to ask followers of Jesus this question today, many would say, "To worship God," or something similar. What's interesting about this response is they are completely missing the point of church.
The rise of Facebook and other social media means many of us are overloaded with acquaintances. We follow along and try to stay in touch with hundreds or thousands of people, and are affected by the events of their lives. Because we are overloaded and relationally drained, we may have many, many shallow friendships with acquaintances, but very few deep, meaningful relationships.
The result is crisis.
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I have never met a mature and gracious follower of Jesus that at some point in their journey did not deconstruct at least a little bit in some way. It may have been a major deconstruction (their entire faith construct) or a minor one (changing the way they think about one certain issue or belief), but they came to the point of realizing that they did not know all the right answers and we’re open to unlearning and changing.
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We say things like, “Go ahead and question / struggle with church beliefs / deconstruct, as long as you end up back where you started.” We have a hard time allowing those questioning followers to land somewhere else on the faith continuum.
So the first thing that we as followers of Jesus need to understand in order to become the kind of church community for healthy deconstruction and reconstruction is the wideness of Christian faith.
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