Come sit with us

Enjoyed a serendipitous moment at El Toro last night. Two old friends whom we hadn’t seen in quite some time arrived soon after we were seated. They were able to buck the waiting line and join us. Our conversation sparked my thoughts before sunrise this morning.

Since our relationship with them centered around church attendance, it was no wonder that the conversation eventually ended up there. Add their names to the list of folks who are not quite sure where the Church As We Know It is sailing.

One frustration the wife expressed was how much time is spent on slogging through issues like the role of women in ministry. “Why are we STILL debating this issue?” was her frustrated question. How will this help us really love other people well?

I understand the One Side believes it is a fundamental question that must be theologically rooted and doctrinally sound, but what I think it doesn’t realize is that the Other Side doesn’t really care.

To borrow a term from Thomas Friedman, the world is flattening, and so should the Church As We Know It. Hierarchies are diminishing because we don’t need them as much anymore. Organizational structure is not as necessary as it once was, in large part because you and I possess the tools powerful enough to arrange and communicate with as many people as we need.

If the Church As We Know It stays caught in this eddy of orchestration, the rest of the culture will float on by and it won’t wait for Her to catch up. In Her attempts at remaining doctrinally pure, She is becoming irrelevant to the very people She thinks She needs to help. Little does She know that they have a lot to teach Her.

The Wise Man once wrote that it is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Tension will always exist between two seemingly opposite issues, but the Church As We Know It needs to tighten up the slack a little bit.