When I See You A Blanket of Stars Covers Me In My Bed

One of the things that inevitably happens when I come back from school is a series of comparisions between Abilene and Tyler. As I go back to church at Shiloh, and I compare it to the churches that I have been to in Abilene, I do not necessarily look at the differences between the two, but I begin think about what a church is exactly.

One of the most powerful things that a church can be is a community, where people are being transformed more and more each day into the likeness of Jesus. This means that a church is not place where "reality" is suspended at the door. Everyone should not walk in the door and simply have on their "I'm Alright, You're alright" face. If the church is not a place where people can see through the faults of others, and know that they are people who are not perfect, but are seeking to be formed into the likeness of Christ.

One of the other things that makes a church what God intended it to be is people who can see the overarching themes and ideas behind the rules. When Christ came, he did not embrace the Pharisees because their hearts did not love God, but rules. Christ came, and yes, he broke some rules, he did some things that people of the society condemned, but he was looking at bigger things.

He dared to heal people on the Sabbath because he knows that people's lives are bigger than simply keeping the rules. In our current times, I see bands like Switchfoot doing work like this. I have heard some Christians decrying their lack of "God" lyrics, but instead they are using their gifts to reach out to people, and to bring in a much larger audience than any other Christian band that I can think of, and this is because Switchfoot would not declare themselves on the surface to be a "Christian band."

God has always reminded people that he wants their hearts, and not their rule-keeping, but too often people fall captive to those who preach propriety in everything. Maybe it is because rule-keeping is something that we can keep track of. We can look up at our own personal chart filled with stars and say "Hey, I am doing alright." It is much more difficult, and takes real faith to live by ideas like love, compassion, gentleness, and faithfulness. With huge words like that, there are gray areas. It is often difficult to see the immediate effect of one's actions, but that is what faith is to me. Not knowing the exact effect of your actions, but living in a way that runs counter to the world, and trusting that if you live this way, you will be formed into the image of Christ more and more each day, and that in turn, will change the world as we know it.