TRUE COMMUNITY

the last couple days at work, i've been editing a book called The Relevant Church: A New Vision for Communities of Faith. The book contains essays by a variety of leaders in churches who can be described by words like "progressive," "culturally relevant," "emerging," "postmodern," etc. etc. etc. those terms actually make me want to gag, but the book is worth reading and has spurred a lot of thought on my part about what church is about, and if myself and the little group with whom i try to be the church on a local level are hitting the mark at all. one overriding theme is that being the church is integrated. that's a fancy way of saying it's a part of my everyday life. i'm not being the church just on saturdays (my church meets on saturday mornings). i am the church when we get together and eat, when we get together and play, when we get together and talk or serve or whatever. this is pretty tricky, as i live a minimum of 30 minutes away from anybody who i'm friends with who also loves Jesus. eating, playing, talking, and serving as a loving group becomes a major chore, involving phone calls and planning ahead and money for gas. extending hospitality to my friends is entirely inconvenient, as people find it to be a major pain to come out to my suburban dwelling in the obscure small florida town of oviedo. the book also talks about, as the church, creating art and praying in creative spaces and eating lunch with homeless people and having stimulating conversations in coffeehouses with both those who have a relationship with Christ and those who don't. these things do not go on in my life. creating art, for me, is writing, which happens once a month over my lunch hour if i'm lucky. if i want to visit a prayer room, i need to set aside an extra hour+ for the drive time. i make excuses for why i can't spend time with "the least of these brothers," and the only coffeeshop near me is barnie's, which - no offense to my roommates who used to be employed there - is suburban and generic and wedged into an overgrown strip mall across from the cineplex 16, and is anything but the environment to spir enlightening conversations about politics and faith and other cultures and the latest independent film showing in town. i sound pretentious, but maybe i'm actually worse than pretentious, because i don't ever actually watch indie films or vote, but i wish i did. anyway, i've been fascinated by the lives of these pastors who wrote in Relevant Church, how seamlessly it all seems to weave together for them, and i'm envious.

but, i've got to give myself some credit. last night, my wonderful, beautiful friend tara and i lapped the (under construction) lake at Crane's Roost, talking about God's will and fears about marriage and insecurity and the past and the future. so for one night, i was being the church in a fairly inspiring place (while Crane's Roost is pretty much a glorified retention pond, it has a nice walking path, and there's a pile of birds; wildlife improves any setting). meanwhile, philip was actually watching an indie film in a quirky downtown theater, and then watching an indie band play. so maybe we're not as far from where we want to be as i usually think we are. i think the solution to all these (fake) problems must be to move to the city. i need to get on that.