Why Be Church Together?

Sometimes, I ask myself this question with sincere tone and great gravity. Other times…well, other times this question is loaded with sardonicism. Church is a unique animal in the world, and it is often difficult. It turns out that people are people are people are people and bring with them all of their people-y things. When that happens, it almost always creates a mess. As my Pastoral Care Professor, Peggy Way, was fond of saying, “People are messy.”

As frustrating as it is, I have found that the “messiness” of people is part of what is so great about church because rarely are we messy in the same exact ways. Please, allow me a paragraph to explain.

There are several places in scripture that mention spiritual gifts. What captures my attention is the implication in these lists that no one has all of the gifts in equal measure. This means that in order to have a complete, well-rounded, and sustainable community, we must know our own gifts and trust that others know theirs. Furthermore, it is only by leaning on the disparate gifts of one another that we are able to continue progressing as a church toward the Realm of God. Where my gifts leave off, yours take flight (and vice versa).

This, by the way, is messy. Spending our time with like-minded and like-skilled populations is always easier. However, by doing this, we only strengthen ourselves in one direction and we lose the beautiful, frustrating complexity of being children of God in community.

The Tri-Conference has pooled immensely gifted people from an incredible geographic range, each of us living into the messiness of life and ministry.

Why be church together?

Be church together because in the messiness of our spiritual gifts interacting, we recognize God working in our midst.