I like my church.
I love it, in fact.
However, when I first married into it, thirteen years ago, I couldn’t wait to leave. It seemed like there were so many bigger, better, smarter, more relevant things to do with my Christianity than waste my time at Podunk Christian Fellowship*. Truly. My pastor, Dennis Bourns, looks like Homer Simpson. And much of his learning had come from books, which led to a wide vocabulary of frequently-mispronounced words. To someone with a minor obsession with the English language, that was beyond irksome. I’d come from a large, truly “up and coming” Vineyard, where the pastor, Brian Anderson (whom I remember with great fondness), was more of a teaching-pastor than a preacher, very well-spoken and almost suave. Dennis is… fiery. His preaching/teaching style has remnants of his Baptist upbringing which made me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps more than just me feel that discomfort, because the church was fairly small. (It’s now around 300 people, but back then, it was even smaller, maybe 150 or so.)
So, how’d I get from Pastor=Homer to Pastor=Beloved??
Much of it can be found here, in the teaching Dennis gave yesterday morning. It’s part of a fairly new series of his, on the purpose of the Church. The text is from one of the most meaty (in my opinion) passages of Scripture, Ephesians 4:11-14. The micro-version of this message is that a route (perhaps the only route??) to real Christian maturity is found within the Body of Christ, within the local church. I have found that to be true. Within the church, I have been challenged, I have been loved, I have been held accountable, I have been stretched, I have been honored, I have been disciplined (gently), I have been rewarded, I have learned, I have served, I have been served. I have grown.
Not that I have attained that “mature (woman), to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.” In fact, last week I made an awful choice, verbally biting into someone who was frustrating me, and I really, really wounded her, and “I’m so sorry” just isn’t cutting it; the relationship may be damaged permanently.
But. When I read posts like this, where my Uncle Steve is longing for the real Church, wondering why she’s gone so astray, and when I talk with a dear friend whose family has had an absolutely awful time trying to find a church to call home, I find myself internally gloating** immensely thankful for my church, and for what I’ve learned there, from “Homer.”
————–
* It’s actually Vineyard Phoenix.
** I’m TOTALLY kidding.
