Messier Church
I am a paradox, ‘a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement’! I love routine, I find safety in predictability, we joke in our house that I don’t mind spontaneity as long as we plan for it! But then also I love to challenge ‘old ways, sometimes I like to start over and find new paths, I like to occasionally ‘tear down’ something. A quote I heard yesterday has left a bit of a mark on my mind and soul; “if there isn’t change, there isn’t change!” Sometimes we need to do something radically different and surprisingly new, to discover a different way. I remember listening to someone talk about how the brain learns and creates new ‘pathways’. They used the illustration of a tree falling down across a road, someone – an ‘older brain’, who regularly journeys along this road will stop and simply wait, this is the route they always take and so they will simply wait doing nothing until the tree is removed. Someone else – ‘a younger brain’, will look at the tree, then take a left or right, navigate through an unknown terrain, get a little muddy and then appear on the road on the other side of the tree! The church, at times, is sitting in their car staring at a tree fallen in the road, doing nothing, wasting time, stuck. We need to embrace a new way of thinking, a new way of doing church, a way that might be messy and take us through unknown terrain! But these ‘new ways’ will help us overcome barriers and take us forward.
Luke Smith, National Team Leader of Fusion, said this…
“We cannot be afraid of the messiness that this new generation will bring when they arrive in our churches. As church leaders, the onus is on us to be flexible and open to adapting. Our recent research on invitation shows that students don’t mind the mess and place high value on authenticity. This means that they will bring in mud on their boots. They will bring questions and they will bring action and we’ll need to make space for this change.”
Wow, what a challenge and call to arms. Mike Yaconelli, in his book ‘Messy Spirituality’ says this: “the church is the place where the incompetent, the unfinished and even the unhealthy are welcome, I believe Jesus agrees!”
As we welcome this new generation, with all their mess and muddy footwear, I have no doubt we will see God move in people in miraculous ways. Seeing faith being explored through new eyes and new stories will give an injection of life and growth in the kingdom of God. We just need to embrace a bit of change, embrace new ways of doing things, embrace a little bit (or a lot) of mess.
When you talk with someone who hasn’t been ‘in church’ all their life and they meet Jesus there is a sense of wonder and surprise that I can sometimes forget. When you see Jesus meet someone new and they share their story with you, it is a gift. It is like free food, fresh, clean air for our lungs, an indulgent weekend away in someone else’s story and imagination. As church we should not fear or avoid these encounters but seek them out because will bring us life and a much needed reminder that God is not done.
In Mark 5, Jesus encounters a ‘man with a legion of demons’. This man is almost the epitome of someone who is lost and ‘a little messy’. Jesus doesn’t avoid him but enters into all this mans chaos, and with his words brings calm, so much so that shortly after; “they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind.”
There is a hilarious reaction of those present – “those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.” Right in front of them the Son of God has brought about wholeness, Jesus has restored this man fully, and what are the people stressed about, the pigs! I am thinking of getting a whole bunch of t-shirts printed with ‘people not pigs’ on them. This obviously wouldn’t be an anti-bacon campaign as I love bacon! But we, the church, the people of God, need to remember we are about lost, messy people finding Jesus. When lost, messy people come to us, they will bring some of their mess into our spaces, and that’s ok. We need to be ok with it. But remember as they come they will bring new ways of seeing God, new ways of doing church, new ways of gathering together, which will be a blessing to us all.
As I sit in my car staring at a fallen tree, I need these new ways so I am wholeheartedly welcoming all the mess and the mud.