Have you ever felt dissatisfied with the church?  Have you ever looked around and wondered if the people who worship with you are being real? Or are the pretending like you?  Do you think the people around you know your "secret shame"?  You’re a sinner, but that’s ok because we all are!

I just finished Mike Yaconneli’s book Messy Spirituality.  All of the questions above are thoughts I gleaned from the book.  The "secret shame" is a quote from Fever Pitch that fits in with a lot of the problems Mike talks about in the book.

You’re probably like me and have read parts of the bible that don’t match up with the church.  Or do we think that all of the sick people have been healed and so the church can now be filled with healthy people?  Or maybe because we have become wholesale dealers of white paint which the people use Sunday mornings while putting on their Sunday best.  I not trying to be cynical but while I still believe the church is God perfect plan I just see us using it in different ways than He intended. 

I think a lot of people stay away from the church because church doesn’t fit them.  Not the consumerism church hunting that goes on but how the church communicates what a good Christian looks like.  We offer these one size fits all discipleship programs and expect all of the different types of people who make up our churches to fit in them.  But how, how can one method fit every person?  That’s where Mike’s title comes in Messy Spirituality.  We are all really a messy when it come to God’s standards, aren’t we?  But because the God of the universe sent His Son to earth and the people He choose to hang out with weren’t the crew a Messiah should hang out with should be a sign to us about how much He cares for us despite who we are.  You know the bunch: guys who didn’t make the cut to become disciples of a Rabbi and that is why they were home fishing with their fathers, physically disabled people, prostitutes (I’m not including Mary Magdalene in this group), tax collectors, notorious sinners and now the likes of you and me.  Jesus doesn’t care that we fail daily while striving for righteousness, He understands.  He doesn’t leave us because doubt enters our mind when we are wondering where He is?  His love for us isn’t changed by anything we can or have done.  He loves us as much today as He did on the cross. 

Messy Spirituality helped solidify some ideas floating through my head. It helped me question things I have said in the past or snap judgments I have made or allowed others to make in my presence.  I have to rework how I think about what makes a disciple of Christ and my value of people we think of as "messy".

I think if Mike were still alive and he ever ate at Moe’s he would have included this quote in the beginning of one of the chapters in the book.

"A burrito is a lot like life, a big mess on the inside." Moe

Tags: messy spirituality

Powered by Qumana

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.