Picture Perfect
by Laurence Windham

What would the ideal church look like? The question is deliberated every time new churches are started, old churches seek reform, new pastors take old churches, classes on ecclesiology are taught, and church planting centers evaluate progress, and alter their blueprints. One man even went to the streets asking folks why they no longer attended church. If it drove them away, he took it out.

Some churches have "vision statements" that explain their existence and guide their work. Slogans like "Serving Christ as we serve our community" or "A place to belong" often serve as a sort of subtitle to the church's name.

Theologians answer the question by stating that the church is defined by the preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and church discipline. While I agree that vision statements, doctrinal positions, and evaluating the culture one is in are important and wise, these are still more technical than visual. When outsiders look at the church they do not see doctrine or liturgy or character or community in abstract, sysytematized or didactic ways. Rather they see the life and practice of Christians.

Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." This love is not the impressionistic, spontaneous, sentimental impulses we confuse with love, but the kind of sacrificial, obedient, interactive love that is both a sign of belonging to God, and a command from Him. The outward beauty of our duty and responsibility to one another would be an unmistakable signal to the world that we are directly connected to Christ.

We have changed this of course because this involvement takes time. So instead of doing what God tells us to do, we substitute collective intimacy with a busy church schedule that is both less personal and more familiar to us, since we feel the need to keep the same superficial pace as society around us.

Picture this: During my wife's stay in the hospital for the birth of our son, we had the pleasure of getting to know our nurse, Sylvia. A native of Grenada she spent several hours talking with us about the culture to which she once belonged, and which she now missed greatly. I had initiated the subject because as a white Protestant American I have no distinct cultural ties. Have you ever noticed how people of other races, color, language and religious backgrounds often have an attachment to each other that white Christians don't even come close to? Sylvia's culture is one replete with dance, tradition, song and ritual. Theirs is a story that everyone in the community knows and recognizes as defining them as a people. This mosaic of communal life manifests itself not only in ceremony on special occasions, but in the way people interact with each other. This is nowhere more apparent than when these people groups become immigrants in another culture. They stick together. They strive to preserve who they are/were. The ethnic characteristics that make them distinct are passed to the next generation. Heartache occurs when the young begin to adopt the norms of the new culture. A sense of "homelessness" occurs when career choices take them away from others of their "tribe."

All of this illustrates what the church should look like. We are a culture began by God. We should be careful with our lifestyle, dogmatic in doctrine, precise in our preaching, proud of our affiliation, but not absent in our "one anothers". The next time you are reading the New Testament, notice how the idea of community is the over-arching requisite of the church. The connectiveness of fellow kinsmen is the spiritual marquee that there exists a people of God.