What Was I Thinking? I AM The Project.

Ever suggest plan revisions to Jesus? I do that.

Hebrews 3 today. It’s a construction chapter, saying that all through history people have had roles to play as they live and work with Jesus. Jesus is the builder and we get to run the wheelbarrow around a bit, helping; and then there is this remarkable verse:

“Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence: we’re the house.”

What was I thinking?

I stand in the middle of the construction site of His Mission and, frankly, it’s (1) overwhelming and (2) tedious/slow. Don’t think about it; Jesus has asked me to stack some bricks, so stack bricks I will. I am doing the “whistle-while-you-work” and starting to feel like I am making some progress with the bricks until I turn around and see that right behind me someone is taking them down. Crap; I look at what I thought was beginning to stand upright and there is my enemy, Erosion, wiping his nose on his sleeve, stealing what has taken ten hours to do. Erosion, you make me so flipping mad!

• erosion in commitment (in a culture of options)
• erosion in character (blurring the edges)
• erosion in values (what we’ll stand for)
• erosion in courage (to say, to do, to be)
• erosion in commitment (did I say that already?)
• erosion in vision (like a bucket with a large hole)
• erosion in sacrifice (Hm. What will it cost me?)

Jesus comes over and sees the Erosion at work and puts His hand on my shoulder in that way and tells me to keep my cool. He flips to Hebrews 3 of the plan and reminds me:

1. Jesus is the builder, not me. He will deal with the Erosion issue and let me know which banks to shore up which are, incidentally,
2. Mostly in me; I am the house (“verse 6,” He says).

I sigh one of those frustrated/impatient sighs (one can’t quite capture in writing) pointing at stuff saying, “It’s not supposed to look like that!” And then I get the raised eyebrow look back. It reminds me of the other day:

Mike and I were browsing through carpet samples, laminates, engineered hardwood; decisions to make as some of our flooring is on its last, last leg. An employee, the kind with age and experience, helped us along. We chatted about home renovation projects and he said with a chuckle, “My wife and I can’t work on projects together. She just can’t believe that I can get the job done on my own even though I am the handyman. She has this to say, and that to say, and before you know it we are arguing and she is more of a project then the project. So I send her off with a little money and when she comes back, it’s all done. It’s just better that way.”

On Sunday, Brian talked about leadership and he said something like, “we’re often not that good at this.” I concur. Seriously I don’t know what to do half the time. Should I use the Phillips? Robertson? Frearson? (Google it) but I am expected to, or I expect myself to or I ask myself, what is Jesus expecting? No really; I would like an answer.

I picture Jesus like the man at Home Depot, chatting with St. Peter saying, “Sometimes I just have to send her off so she can remember who the Handyman is. When she comes back she will see what I have done. It’s just better that way.”

So what are You saying Jesus; I am the house? Let me get my head around this. So You are building this house and You are building that house and another one. I see, You are pulling together a neighborhood and neighborhoods built Your way and it looks beautiful to You. And these houses are refuges people can come to: the wounded and broken-hearted, the bullied and the harassed, the sojourner the thirsty the tired the hungry…these are the ones who will find the Kingdom You are building, Your way, in us.

Hand me another brick (Ach. That title has been taken already).

— Teresa Klassen

Attending or Attached?

Words matter. The words we use to describe our walk with Jesus and our relationship with His “Bride,” the “Church” matter.

If we say, “I am going to church on Sunday,” is this the way it should be said? That is the way it has been said for eons, but does it really describe what we are doing? And if we say it that way, aren’t we saying that one day we are moving from our home to a building for a specific activity called “church”?  We have now glued the church on a spot, and the church was never meant to be stuck. We are also saying that when we get there, that’s church; what happened before we got there, was not.

What about when we say, “I attend” this or that church.  What does that say about us?  It means to go to something, to be present, and to observe what is occurring there. Attend says nothing about relationship, only about the choice to show up in one place versus another. Now the church seems like an option in the Leisure Guide where you might attend one course this season and another the next.  “Attend” has no buy-in, it is simply your name on a list.

Words can mislead; I don’t just mean “mislead” in the sense that they can be unclear, I mean they can literally lead us down the wrong path; as innocent as “Hurry up, we are going to be late for church,” sounds, it is one more example of how “the church” became a thing we show up at, versus a people who who are as connected as the parts of our physical body. Whoever said, “What church do you go to?” probably had good intentions, but those six little words changed the Church.

I am reading Acts right now and it frustrates me. I should be inspired by it, but some days it just bugs me. When chapter 2 verse 44 says, “All the believers were together and had everything in common…” it makes me jealous. When will we mean something like that to each other? When will we stop “going to church” and “attending” on a Sunday and start wanting to be the church with a sincerity of heart and a desire…

Yeah, a desire.  A desire to walk together over the long haul, to fix what needs fixing together, to struggle through it and not quit, to come back to the table again and again and again, longing for Jesus to work in us and through us, to fix us and to fix the world.

I have a feeling, a bad gut feeling, that this won’t happen until things get really bad; until we really need each other. Is that what it will take?

Gathering is one of the things “the church” did together. They also devoted themselves to learning and equipping and motivating one another, carrying one another’s burdens and sharing with each other, remembering Christ in the Lord’s Supper and worshiping and encouraging one another, working out conflicts and reconciling, sorting through beliefs and issues; there was a lot going on as they gathered. There was a desire to be together, a need to be together because who knows what the week would bring as the church was out and about in the world, representing Jesus as literally as they could. There was no casual approach to any of it.

Can we be what Acts 2 is describing?  Courses and Programming are not going to accomplish this. Structures are not going to accomplish this. It is each individual Christ-follower wanting it and choosing to move from casual observer with no obligations, to sitting at the table and working it out with the group of people we are attaching ourselves to.

Attaching ourselves to; now that has a different ring to it.

I think a lot about this because it is easy for me to pretend to be attached. I am, after all, a “pastor’s wife” (Labels. Don’t get me started). Some could say, “It’s your job.” If this is my job, I quit. I am not kidding. If I am a part of this because I need something to do, I can think of, conservatively, a thousand things to do that don’t involve such close and sometimes painful contact and personal investment.

But it is not a job: “Jesus, this better not be a job!”

I don’t know what all this will mean someday; this attachment.  I hope I get it more often than I don’t as I and as we try to be a light on the hill. I can only speak for myself, as all of us only can, about who and what I attached myself to and what was really alive and well in my heart. I wonder how well I will have merged with God’s plan and God’s people? Was I fully the “part” of the Body Christ gifted me to be? And if change is in the air at some point, will it really be God asking me to “detach” in some way and engage somewhere else, or will it be because it would be simpler; less complicated?

There are so many doors available to open. So many doors so easy to shut to get some peace and quiet. “God, help me to stand firm, to not be easily moved out of community. To be fully present in these relationships that you have attached me to, and give me the confidence to know that none of it is in vain.”

— Teresa Klassen