I feel like “church” is a bad word. When I describe to others what I do and what I’m interested in, the word always comes up, and every time it gives me a funny feeling… I hesitate to even say the word.
I think I know why now.
Somehow the church has lost credibility with the public. Our ultimate vision is to see that relationship between the church and the people restored, but my part in that restoration is building a community center.
You see, every church we have been a part of has backed themselves into a corner and limited their reach by fitting a mold. The mold isn’t bad, it’s just an incomplete picture. It’s another way. Everyone understands in the West that we have several major parts that make up our SELF. Most would say there are 3 or 4 parts.
- Spiritual – Obviously, churches zone in on this major and very important aspect of a person. Most of the time, they do a pretty good job.
- Physical – The church drops like a rock on this.
- Emotional/Social – Since most of our emotions are ultimately done in a sort of community (or lack thereof), we group emotional and social together. We think churches do this pretty well (sunday school, bible studies, congregations). But there’s still the elusive third places like bars, clubs, and coffee shops. We think newer churches are paying more attention to this aspect.
- Mental – We think this is another aspect, separated from the rest. This is the academics and philosophy part of the person. Some parts of the philosophy would overlap with spiritual, but most of the time, it’s this aspect that differentiates people, not necessarily the spiritual aspect
Why do we think caring for any of the other aspects should matter to a church? Easy, it’s the complete Kingdom of God message that Jesus preached about. Notice that when Jesus preaches and teaches, he’s always talking about the Kingdom of God and how had arrived. Then watch what he does! He walks around healing people, setting some theology straight, He is called the Wonderful Counselor, and surely with all the walking around he did, he was physically apt.
He didn’t just sit at the synagogue and set theology straight. He cared for the entire person.
We want to be like Jesus.