Ugly Religion or How do Others See the Church?

1. "They just don't know what to think about Northbrook", a friend said to me. You see we have these missionary friends who our church (Northbrook) supports. We support them financially, spiritually, and emotionally. We sincerely love this family. Our youth love their kids, our moms love the mom, our dads love the dad, our leadership loves their freindship and counsel and vise versa. They needed a car - the work the family does is with missionaries all over the country where they are requires a car. We raised money sent it and some members gave above that, it was not enough. But, they hesitated to ask, after all, Northbrook had given so much already, and we are not a big church, nor a financially growing group.
See when you are a missionary, you feel like you are always asking; for prayers for money for bodies to help. That is a hard place, imagine if you had to do that year after year... to do a job that you cannot possibly NOT do because God asked you to do it for him.
I digress... the church found the last amount of money to get them a car. When my friend called to tell them, they were speechless, speechless is something these people are not, usually. Speechless. "They just don't know what to think about Northbrook", she said. It completely floored them to receive freely from the church, what the church had found extra. Yes, I am blessed by a missions minded church, so why not give the extra to missions they thought.

2. "Do not think of paying this back", she said. As a single mom, things in our house tend to break then stay broken because you need to buy school clothes, or groceries. My dishwasher broke, well I thought, it is an extra, a "luxury" people in other countries don't have them at all. No problem. I have a job that requires me to wash my hands up to 10 times in a work day (ok I do obsess about clean hands), and there fore I have a skin problem because of that. And in the winter it is worse. A dear friend who had knowledge of this problem with my hands rallied our small group and they along with a big donation from her, bought me a nice dishwasher, not the cheapest, but a really nice one. She couldn't stand to think about my hands cracked and sore doing dishes as well as the other things I did for my son alone. "Do not think of paying this back", she said. This is our gift to you. (I am crying now as I write this, just remembering)

I did not know what to think of them, of Northbrook, the church. You see our church sees church differently than alot of churches. As a preachers kid/church planters kid, I have seen them all, everykind of church available to mankind, even different denominations. We see church as living life together. We see church as the body of Christ. We do for eachother, we do for others, we do for fellow Christians, we do for people seeking the Lord, we do for those who don't know Christ (yet). We feel this is what the church is for, to worship God especially by doing. We strive to not just be hearers but doers of the word. In our church there are so many stories like the two above.

When we, those who profess to be closest to Christ, refuse to show Christ to other people, the result is empty, hollow religion (Max Lucado). Lucado even calls it Ugly. Needs ignored while opinions are disputed - ugly religion. People go hungry and with out the Lord as we argue over whose denomination has it right - ugly religion. A missionary family goes hungry, unable to provide for their family nor do thier job while a church argues over new carpet colors - dare I say ugly religion.

I know I have a special bend towards missions, but we send people out to do the Lords work, work we are either unwilling to do or feel not called to, and then cut the "missions budget" to get new microphones, new pews, new carpet, add personnel. I know this is strong, but I feel sometimes the "western" church has it all wrong. It is not about he building, but the people inside and outside the building.

I challenge you to look at your church. How can you change it if it needs changing? What are you doing for others in your community, in your church, in the mission field?


How awesome if your community didn't know what to think of your church? Oh and by the way our missionary friends are now shopping for a car!