Another excerpt from Show Time: Living Down Hypocrisy by Living Out the Faith on "Showing up Regularly and Really". Show Time was just honored by The Discerning Reader as one of the top 50 books of 2004.
In college, I had a writing professor who said that in order to be a good writer one had to be religious about grammar. He believed that unless you bound yourself to the rules of grammar, and practiced then every time you wrote something, then you would never develop the clear prose and clean syntax that makes for effective writing. My writing prof understood that to be a good writer, one needed to bind one self, to commit oneself to the rules and discipline of writing, and that those rules and discipline needed to be practiced regularly, religiously.
Let me ask you something: Based on what you do most regularly, what are you most religious about? Some of us are religious about work, some of us are religious about exercise, some of us religious about reading the Wall Street Journal, and hopefully all of us are religious about hygiene. Whatever you do regularly, whatever you order your life around, what ever sets the pattern of your life or binds your time is frankly, according to this definition, your religion.
So let me challenge you to this binding commitment. Be religious about this, let this order your life and regulate your living. Make it a rule of your life. A regular part of everything you do: Show up. Show up, religiously. Show up regularly.
Once we realize that our religious life is nothing but a humble response to God wherever we are, then we understand that God is always, always, always reaching out to us, calling us to him, inviting us to listen and learn from him. And godliness is nothing more than answering the call and showing up.
Now I don’t just mean showing up to worship, though that is a pretty clear Biblical command. And I don’t mean showing up with false fronts and fake prayers, and church manners. What I mean is that for faith to work, we must show up before God as we really are as often as possible. We must come before him and hold nothing back. Whether we come with doubts and struggles, whether it is in public or at church, make the habit of bringing your real self before the real God regularly in worship, in prayer and in confession.
In Hendrick’s Exit Interviews we learn that when people leave the church it most often because they are unable to find some genuine community, and they are going looking for it. People desperately want an authentic spiritual community. They want to be part of a place that is real, humble and devout. They came to church to be with true believers, those who are genuinely and authentically devout.
And that is why it is not enough to focus only on our own character, our own inner faith. For faith to make a difference in a world of people looking for real encounter with God, the entire church must be different.
In her ground-breaking book, The Shelter of Each Other, psychologist Mary Pipher tells of how the “toxic” culture that is fueled by the media, consumerism and the breakdown of extended family has led to the widespread and pervasive pain of the same dysfunctions that are rampant in urban centers. Pipher believes that the remedy is not just helping individual people work through painful issues, but is the restoration of a sense of community where we “shelter each other” through deep relationships, authentic commitment and a commitment to stand together to challenge the destructive values of our culture.
As a pastor, I believe that this is exactly the role of the church. We are not just to be a hospital for broken people, but also a Community of health and wholeness. The church is not primarily a institution, but an organism where we are “members one of another” (Romans 12:5). What we have to offer the world is not just right doctrine, or life-changing experience, but a Community grounded in the truth, experiencing the encounter of God and sharing the support to live differently in a the world that is “corrupted by lust.”
At this point in the journey we are intentionally beginning to acknowledge that Christianity is not a solo endeavor. And those who make the most difference in the world are not just individual saints, but godly communities.
“Just as I am, Just as We are”
Imagine the difference if those of us who have learned to come to Jesus “just as I am” started coming to church “just as I am.” Imagine how different would be the quality of worship, the sincerity of our fellowship, the authenticity of our friendships, the care for our guests, if each of us was dedicated to coming before God “just as I am.” No fakery, no desire to impress anyone else, just our humble real selves living before God’s face whether at church or in public all the time. Let what we sing about Jesus be true about Jesus’ people...
“Just as I am, tho tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O lamb of God, I come."
That seems pretty real to me.
Tomorrow we start preparing for our next spiritual discipline in the series: "Slowing Down"
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