Don't you just love your church?!

“We found a church we love!” 

“I love my church.”

“Well, we don’t love love our church, but it’s ok.”

I’ve often said those kind of comments.  In Corvallis, I always told people, “I love my church so much.”  At other times in other towns, I would often say, “Well, I don’t love love my church, but it’s ok, I mean at least they teach the Word and stuff.”  And I’ve often asked people, “How do you like your church?”  They or I would respond with a quick run down of characteristics that are either positive or negative.  “Well, the worship is [fill in the blank: boring, loud, quiet, old fashioned, hard to follow, not my style] and but I like the [fill in the blank:  preaching, sunday school, nursery, youth group, small groups].  So all in all it’s just fine.”  How many times have I done that?! 

But what Jeff keeps reminding me is that the church is the people.  Yesterday I overheard some college girls doing the old children’s hand-song:  “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open it up and see all the people,” twising their hands upside down to reveal their wiggling fingers.  Such a small thing, but it does teach our children that the church is the building (and that it has a steeple!), and the people wiggle around inside.  And for many, that is the church–the building.   Or, more accurately for our discussion, the church is the programs.  We like worship but don’t like the teaching.  We like the teaching but we don’t like the sunday school.  We like that the church has a nursery. We don’t like that the church has a nursery.  Goodness gracious I am so convicted of how opinionated I am with regard to “how to do church.”  The church we’re at now is lightyears different from the church where we served before.  And naturally, when we first came all those differences felt awkward and bothersome, like wearing someone else’s shoes.  I kept evaluating things in terms of my preferences. 

So this past week, I’ve been talking to God about this:  To love “our church” is to love the people.  We will never love our church until we love the people.  And if you don’t love those people, then you don’t love people at all, because people are people.  Do I love people?  Do I love these people?  God never once commanded us to love the worship style, to love the preaching style, to love the building. He never commanded us to love programs or procedures.  He commanded us to love the people, and the people are the church. 

Now I’m not saying that our individual likes and dislikes have no value. I wholeheartedly agree that we should find a local congregation where we can support the work of the ministry without reservation about essential issues.  Not every congregation is for every person.  But the majority of us aren’t in that boat.  The majority of us, including myself, just need to ask God, Help me love my church.  Help me love the people.  Move me past myself and give me supernatural love for people, even the ones who are hard to love. 

And finally, love for my church moves me beyond local congregation walls to love the church.  The worldwide church of God–all true believers.  Do I love people?  Real people–the ugly ones.  The bitter ones.  The ones who don’t believe the same way I do.  The ones who aren’t friendly or even nice sometimes.  The ones who are annoying (aren’t we all?).  Do you love your church?  Let’s love our churches.  And next time someone asks, “How do you like your church?”  Let’s respond, “I love every one of them.”