A while ago a person new to our church asked someone they knew to characterize GBC. After a moment of thought he came back with: “quirky people who love Jesus.” That got a bit of a laugh and still can get a chuckle but I have to confess I was a bit unhappy with that. Not that it wasn’t accurate, it was, but it was more: did I want to be leading such a group? I guess perhaps it pulled on my ego (God’s still working on that with me!) but lately I’ve been reconsidering this and have found it to be a source of joy for me. For the longest time I focused on the first part: ‘quirky people’ but lately I settled on the last: ‘who love Jesus’. No, I can not only live with that but it makes my heart soar.
Quirky people who LOVE Jesus!
The church is made up of many parts, some glamourous, others not so much. Each though are important when they serve their function- to love Jesus. Paul talked about this is 1 Corinthians 12 when he said: Just as a body has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body— were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many…. one body, many parts, even quirky ones! The challenge for me then has been what he addresses right after that:
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be...everyone has a place in God’s body. The Protestant church is often criticized for having so many manifestations but in many ways this is why- there are so many different types of people, some quirky, and therefore expressions of how to worship and love Jesus, but love Jesus we must do.
It’s one thing to characterize someone as being ‘quirky’ but that can sometimes lead to criticism from the ‘beautiful people’ of our society (not criticizing them either!) in our desire to make the church attractive and reach our communities. The problem is that when we start classifying people we become like the Pharisees Jesus criticized. In Luke 5 after Jesus called Matthew, the tax collector as a disciple, Matthew held a big party for his friends. Here’s what’s reported: Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” All were people who needed him, and needed him desperately, quirky or not. Were the ‘church people’ showing love? The answer is pretty obvious.
GBC will never become a megachurch (ego says ‘ouch’) but in all honestly I don’t think I have the temperament for that anyways. I’m a quirky guy in a lot of ways so it’s not surprising others like me are attracted to us. God’s body, the church, is a diverse, wide, wacky and wonderful thing and there’s a place for everyone in it. That’s why we have so many different expressions. Is this an advertisement for GBC? Not really…well, maybe. The point is, if you don’t feel like you fit in anywhere keep looking, there’s a place, like GBC, that will meet you where you are and love who you are. That’s letting our light shine and I’m pretty honored to be the shepherd of such a place that loves Jesus in tangible ways.
Quirky people who love Jesus? Yes, we are and we do, and I LOVE it!
Quirky people who LOVE Jesus!
The church is made up of many parts, some glamourous, others not so much. Each though are important when they serve their function- to love Jesus. Paul talked about this is 1 Corinthians 12 when he said: Just as a body has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body— were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many…. one body, many parts, even quirky ones! The challenge for me then has been what he addresses right after that:
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be...everyone has a place in God’s body. The Protestant church is often criticized for having so many manifestations but in many ways this is why- there are so many different types of people, some quirky, and therefore expressions of how to worship and love Jesus, but love Jesus we must do.
It’s one thing to characterize someone as being ‘quirky’ but that can sometimes lead to criticism from the ‘beautiful people’ of our society (not criticizing them either!) in our desire to make the church attractive and reach our communities. The problem is that when we start classifying people we become like the Pharisees Jesus criticized. In Luke 5 after Jesus called Matthew, the tax collector as a disciple, Matthew held a big party for his friends. Here’s what’s reported: Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” All were people who needed him, and needed him desperately, quirky or not. Were the ‘church people’ showing love? The answer is pretty obvious.
GBC will never become a megachurch (ego says ‘ouch’) but in all honestly I don’t think I have the temperament for that anyways. I’m a quirky guy in a lot of ways so it’s not surprising others like me are attracted to us. God’s body, the church, is a diverse, wide, wacky and wonderful thing and there’s a place for everyone in it. That’s why we have so many different expressions. Is this an advertisement for GBC? Not really…well, maybe. The point is, if you don’t feel like you fit in anywhere keep looking, there’s a place, like GBC, that will meet you where you are and love who you are. That’s letting our light shine and I’m pretty honored to be the shepherd of such a place that loves Jesus in tangible ways.
Quirky people who love Jesus? Yes, we are and we do, and I LOVE it!