I quit Going to Church

By Joel Atwell

“… you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God …”

Dear church,

One week ago today was Ash Wednesday – the official beginning of the season Christians refer to as “Lent.” Lent is not a collection of fabric particles in your dryer (or your belly button); it’s an intentional time on the Christian calendar given to identifying with Christ’s sufferings in preparation for the celebration of his ultimate victory – Easter! Lent recalls Jesus’ forty days of solitude and fasting in the desert on the front end of his public ministry and his eventual betrayal, mock trial, humiliation, beatings and crucifixion that ended his public ministry – or did it?

During our special Ash Wednesday service last Wednesday night we extended to people an opportunity to make a decision to “add” or “subtract” something “to” or “from” their lives as an “intentional spiritual practice” during the Lenten journey toward Easter. The point of that “intentional spiritual practice,” of course, is not to gain brownie points with God or to prove ourselves as “spiritual.” Rather it is to identify (in some small way) with Christ’s self-denial and suffering and to give him a window of access into our lives through which he can pour his GRACE (which can be defined as “God’s Redemptive Activity Continually Extended”) and continue his work of transforming us more and more into the image of Christ.

At one point in the service everyone was invited to bring the slip of paper upon which they had written their “decision” and place it “at the foot of the cross.” Later I collected the papers and briefly flipped through them. What an interesting read. Caffeine addicts were giving up caffeine. Facebook addicts were limiting their computer time. TV junkies were choosing to scale back their TV watching. Chocoholics were fasting chocolate. Skateboarders were committing to fast skateboarding. Nicotine users were giving up tobacco. (As I read some of those I thought, “Wow! We’re going to have some extremely nervous, hurting, irritable people around here for a few days – or weeks! God, help us not to kill each other.” J) Some were making intentional decisions to give more time to concentrated prayer or to give more attention to rooting negative talk out of their daily lives or to be purposefully more attentive to their spouse. What I felt like the Lord put on my heart was to “pray daily WITH my wife.” We both pray, but we’re not very good about praying together.

Of course most of these things are, perhaps, practices that should extend way beyond Lent, but Lent is at least a good place to start. Perhaps if we practice them intentionally for these weeks they’ll become a new habit in our lives – a spiritual habit through which God can form Christ in us more and more by his GRACE.

Obviously, a person can do the “I gave that up for Lent” thing and have it be of no spiritual benefit whatsoever. “Spiritual benefit” depends primarily on the posture of the heart – our response to God’s grace. But I pray for each of us who, with “a broken and contrite heart” are genuinely seeking God’s heart during these days of Lent. May we not settle for being a people who simply “go to church.” May he give us grace to “be the church” today and increasingly in the days ahead.

Praying for you during this Lenten journey as we live toward Easter,

Joel

PS – If you weren’t at the Ash Wednesday service and you want to join us on the journey; by all means, come along!

I Quit Going to Church

By Joel Atwell

“… you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God …”

Dear church,

A couple weeks ago I quoted from Dr. Dennis Kinlaw’s book, Preaching in the Spirit. Obviously it’s written primarily to those who have been called by God to assume the role of preacher/teacher of his Word, but so much of what he has to say applies across the board to every believer. For instance …

“Perhaps no words of Scripture are more shocking than the ones that now fell on the disciples’ ears … ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (Jn. 20:21).

The two Greek words for ‘sent’ are used about forty times in John; both are found in this verse. Jesus’ use of these words reveals the profound awareness of the mission he had, the acute sense of ‘sent-ness.’ They are expressive of how Jesus saw his relationship to the Father and to the world. His expression in Greek literally means, ‘the sending-me Father.’ This sense of mission had been determinative of Jesus’ entire life. Now he turned to that band of disciples huddled together in a secret room on Easter evening and said, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’

In this way, Jesus spells out the Christians’ commission in the world. We are to be to the world something of what Jesus is to us. He came to redeem the world; having finished the earthly part of that commission, he sends us as his co-workers to complete the job … What a job! If every person is as big as his job, then Christians should stand tall. We are engaged in the most vital business in the world, God’s business …

However, we should carefully note to whom Jesus speaks here. Not only were the apostles in that room. Cleophas and his nameless friend were there; the women who had found Jesus’ tomb that morning were also there. To all of them, he gave the same commission that he had received from his Father. Jesus was sent so that the world would not perish, but be saved. Now he sent his own with the same commission.

This has profound implications for all who claim the name of Christ. Every person has the right to choose whether to become a Christian. Once a person has chosen, though, he finds that he has made another decision. His business (no matter his vocation) is now to finish the ministry which Christ began … God calls every Christian with Christ to the task of saving the world. What a task!”

Simply “going to church” falls woefully short of what Jesus has in mind for his followers. His intention, and what he died and rose to make possible, is that we would “be the church” in the world – those who carry out His commission of reconciliation and restoration in the power of his Spirit.

May it be so of each of us,

Joel