The Country Club

What is your first reaction when you hear this word: CHURCH?

For someone like me, who pretty much was born and raised in a church, this is what I've always thought of about church.

People. Worship. Preaching. Bible. Prayer. Communion.

The church as the world see it today is a close-knit community with its own culture, language, dress code, rules, etc. This is what I describe as church being like a country club. If someone that does not look, sound, act, or believe like they belong in the country club comes in, members give them two options: start looking, speaking, and acting like you belong in the country club or "Thank you, but no thanks."

Wait, what? What in the world are you talking about?

I think that the church today has become too focused on maintaining the standards of behavior that they forget the ultimate commandment: to love God with everything you've got and to love others as you love yourself (Mt 22:37-39).

Imagine this scenario.

A "lady of the night," prostitute, hooker, or whatever term you want to use to describe her line of work finishes her "shift" around the same time normal people were starting to wake up and getting ready for church. She then, walking back to her dingy one-bedroom apartment, sees the building with a giant wooden cross at the corner of the intersection. She hears the blaring sound of a band playing upbeat songs. She could feel the vibrations of the bass guitar in her chest. A feeling she did not understand overwhelmed the fatigue, and she walked nervously in the direction of the building. "Maybe this is where I find peace," she thinks. Before she enters the big wooden doorway, she tugs on her mini skirt and pulled up her skimpy blouse, a futile attempt to make herself look presentable. She walks in and sits in the back row, trying to not stick out so much.

But she does stick out. She knows it. Everyone in the big auditorium knows it. The person whose job is to greet the people coming into the church was so shocked she forgot to greet.

What happens now?

From my experience of typical church life, after the service, some people - the so-called leaders of the church - will try to greet her and say hello. Other people, though, will just stay away, like she's a plague. She might come back, if most of the people she interacted with was nice, but at one point they demand for her to "repent" and believe in Jesus. Also to be "baptized." Around this time, an older lady at the church would probably dare herself to come up to this girl and tell her that she should get a new wardrobe.

Difference makes people uncomfortable.

I understand that. I also understand that the scenario I just presented to you had lots of "ifs" connected to it. Other churches might have a different approach. But still, in most cases, when you're different, people get uncomfortable.

This is why I think churches today are like country clubs. They attract and keep the people that look, act, speak, and believe the same way as them. When "different" people show up, they try to give them the country club makeover. They don't blatantly turn down others, but nonverbal communication is still communication, right? This reminded me of the movie, "Stepford Wives." (I am so compelled to go on a tangent discussion, but I will refrain from confusing everyone.)

Country Club Christianity keeps people in a bubble, and keeps others out of the love of Jesus (so to speak, not that you can really do that). After a while, it will be all about: what's in it for me? Soon, the people of the church will abandon their mission to declare the good news of Christ's love and hope that came with his resurrection, only to pamper and entertain themselves with the soap opera they like to call Christianity.

I like to think of church as a hospital or a rehabilitation center. When the Pharisees saw that Jesus was hanging out with tax collectors and sinners and looked down on him because of that, Jesus told them this: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mk 2:17).

Whoa. Wait a minute there... Jesus hung out with sinners?

In short, yes, he did.

That's his whole purpose of coming to earth. He even stated it as his mission. When he was at a synagogue in Nazareth, he read a passage from Isaiah and named it his purpose statement.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." -Luke 4:18-19

This is the good news that Jesus brought! Jesus came to die on the cross and rise again on the third day, conquering the punishment of sin once and for all. That part is true, but there is more to Jesus' ministry than just that. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and showed mercy to the prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus didn't just give the hope of an eternal life after the end of this life. He also gave people hope for right now - for all those who wake up every morning to death sentences, physically and socially.

As the body of Christ, I believe that the church should reflect the head - Jesus. Church should be full of sinners, not those have known the love of Christ and indulge themselves in sin, but those who are seeking, and hurting, and confused. The church should be a rehabilitation center for the soul, a place where the hurting and the confused come to get peace and acceptance. It should also be the place where people that have gotten help and are healthier give encouragement and love to the new ones.

I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't even try to go there. That will just complicate our lives.

Maybe we should just stick with The Country Club.

A confession to start.

I hated Christians.

Yes. That was it, my confession. I have a feeling that when my parents read this, they might have some kind of a panic attack.

I've had this exact confession before, when I was thirteen. Or maybe fourteen. It's that awkward time in my life that I try to not think about very often. That particular confession brought about the story of my faith. That is a story for another time, although if for some reason you'd like to read it, you can find it on my website.

This particular confession happened sometime around my senior year of college. I think irony seems to color my life in more ways than I want it to, because at that point in my life, I was about to complete my undergraduate in Youth Ministry, Music, and Biblical Studies. For about four years prior to this confession, I was training to be a pastor. Then I realized that I did not like Christians, so becoming a pastor for them would be highly unbearable.

The rationale for my confession was simple. I was not able to come to terms with what it meant to be a Christian. The Christians that had inhabited my life were fake. None of their actions were real. I was sick and tired of living around people who wore masks every single day.

I was very, very bitter.

After months of bitterly going through life, something just clicked in place. Today's "neat" version of Christianity (the one that has all the rules and tries to impose that on everyone) isn't what it was originally. Jesus' ministry wasn't fake at all.

I no longer hate Christians, by the way.

What changed?

I'm absolutely overwhelmed by how wide, and long, and high, and deep the love of Christ is. And the grace that continually flows into my life.

I realized that it's not about the Christians, it's about Christ. And I'm not any better than they are, searching for a way to make things "work."

And so, my journey began. A journey of de-bitter-ization and the pursuit of what it means to be the disciple Jesus called me to be.