Get Out of the Church

Cleveland, OH

In the morning, I will have yet another body part removed; my spleen.
For the first time this week I was able to see an image of my spleen as it looks now, beside an image that was taken 20 months ago.
Without going into great detail, my spleen either needs to birth the alien carcass which seems to be within it, or it needs to be removed.

But seeing that image brought me back to this blog and what I would say about this journey of the last 20 months and what is to come.
Something a friend told me came to mind.

Several days ago a friend, who had been reading my blog told me that through this blog I was becoming the 'Apostle to the Suffering.'
While this is a very high compliment, I'm not sure I can agree with that title.
In fact, I'm not sure I want that title.

To work and minister to, on behalf of the Creator of the Universe, to those who hurt, are in pain, suffer through diseases, divorces and devastation - it is very difficult.
To be sure, God is always present among us, within us, around us; we just need to make Him visible to those who do not know Him as a Christian might.

Christians are the living fruit of ministry; if you take a piece of real fruit, like a Golden Delicious

Apple, its main goal is to reproduce.
That is the purpose of the Christian as well - seed by seed - we are to reproduce; to reproduce we have to take what we have learned and get out of the church and into the world with God's message of grace.

The place where I learned the most about God was at Seminary; but not just any seminary.
It is the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention and is appropriately named, 'The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.'
It was there that I learned, in leaps and bounds, a vast array of Biblical knowledge, theology,

Norton Hall, Southern Seminary

apologetics and how to form my thoughts into coherent words and place them on paper to convey the meaning which I intend.
For this knowledge and development of ability, I will be forever grateful.

Yet, there was a downside to being a student at Southern.
The Seminary community, like many church communities today, seemed so out of touch with the world taking place around them.

From the beginning, while at seminary I felt like an outsider to some degree; I didn't originate from a strong SBC state nor had I graduated from a Bible college.
I came with an Arts & Sciences background, so I looked at the world differently but it was obvious to me - every person I came into contact with as a student seemed to love the Lord as much or even more than myself.

But I was deeply different.
Most of the students either ministered in a church or worked on campus; I did as well but I also worked for the Louisville Division of Police.
Each night I was out on the streets, wearing a badge clipped to my belt while carrying a Bible at my side, I stepped out of what I called the "Seminary Bubble" and saw the real world. 
And when it came to following in lockstep with the institution, I was kind of a rebel in my younger days.

On campus, there were constant debates about Calvinism and how the Convention should be more centralized; others talked about if we should accept people who had been baptized as infants as members of our churches without being immersed as adults.

What I didn't hear were people who were debating better ways to give to the poor; nor did I ever hear anyone recruiting students to work through the year on a volunteer basis in one of Louisville's soup kitchens or homeless shelters.
No..many were too encapsulated in the 'Bubble.'
That world just didn't exist once crossing onto the campus.

Recently I was reading an author who was discussing this very issue; this "Bubble World" so many Churches and Christians seem to desire to live within.
That author provided a wonderful quote by Marilynne Robinson:

               "People who insist that the sacredness of Scripture depends on belief 

                in Creation in a six literal days seem never to insist on a literal reading 

                of 'to him who asks, give,' or 'sell what you have and give the money to

                the poor.'"

Ouch.
But the woman is right.

Walking the streets of Cleveland, I noticed that when people are left to themselves their mind drifts to their own lives; it's obvious that people are hurting and suffering and dealing with all sorts of issues that we don't know about.
It was written on their faces.
But if you were to ask someone, 'Is everything OK?'
They would falsely, but almost naturally, put on a false face and say they were fine.

At the Cleveland Clinic, you really don't see that reaction. Everyone there knows everyone else is hurting, suffering or even dying.

Cleveland Clinic

Most are severe cases in ongoing treatment or even on the down turn towards death and eternity.

As I was standing in line, waiting to check in and have a procedure done, it didn't escape me that every person I could see either was hurting themselves physically or someone they loved was hurting and they were enduring the emotional toll which comes from suffering.

Yet, the entire place, the entire hospital of doctors, nurses, technicians in various fields, patients, and caregivers - everybody and in every place you went and interacted with others - there is an unmistakable atmosphere of hope which permeates throughout the Cleveland Clinic campus.

Most people that a person would come in contact with seem relatively healthy.
Looking at myself in a mirror in the lobby of one of the areas of the hospital, I look healthy, as if there is nothing wrong with me at all.
Yet, like many others, there is something foreign to my body which is slowly killing me from within; an unstoppable force which I cannot live with forever.
I am not alone.

Walking across the courtyard from one building to the next, with my wife's hand in mine, we saw several people sitting on park benches enjoying the day's sunlight.
Some on them were doctors; others were patients who were finally outside the hospital and welcomed the smells and sounds of spring with smiles on the faces as well as their hearts.

There was a very ill small child, a little girl not more than two years-old, her mother and another woman were playing with her on a blanket as best they could. 
The tubes in her body provided a resistance.
But in that moment, they were all so happy.

Traversing the floors of the hospital, there were no screams of torture coming from the patients; there was no frustration with the hospital's food. 
And it has been my experience that agitation among the patients is always very, very low.

What I have described is rare.
So, what is it that makes this one hospital different than any other place I've ever been?
Most hospitals and nursing homes are depressing, but this one is overshadowed with hope.
How is this possible?

Is it just hope for hope's sake?
Is it the hope at the end of the rope?
Maybe just the power of positive thinking.
But it is something because I have seen more compassion and hope on display at this one hospital than at the Seminary when I was a student, save a few individuals I knew back then.

I asked the man taking blood from my arm, "Why is there so much hope in this place?"
He responded, 'Dude, there is...'
Then he apologized for calling me 'dude;' informing me that he had teenagers.
He also related the experience of his mother's life being extended by several years in this hospital after other hospitals had told her that she was terminal and there was nothing they could do.

When it came right down to it, I found that there is so much hope at the Cleveland Clinic because every person who works there has the attitude of being an intricate part in a patient's healing.
They have confidence in themselves that they will provide the best care they possibly can and when that is combined with the best effort of everyone else, the hope that you feel soon becomes a reality the patient experiences.

They have taken their belief and attitude into the world to people who need hope more now than at any time in their lives.
And the results that are produced, along with the overwhelming sense of hope, is as amazing as it is contagious. 

In my mind, I thought Seminary was to be like this; taking the hope, joy and grace of the Gospel of God and bringing it to a lost world, to people who needed it the most.
I thought it was going to be a spiritual 'Mecca' for the lack of better words.

But I soon discovered that Seminary isn't exactly designed for rebels or free-thinkers; it is designed for the majority who choose to live within the 'Bubble.'
While the 'Bubble' is safe, it is a dangerous place for church people to live because the Kingdom of God is advanced very little from within it.

In the Old Testament book of Second Kings, Samaria was under siege; the people were starving to death because the people were locked up within the city.
Nobody would leave the walls of the city for fear of the invading army.
There were lepers who went outside to forge; once outside they found an abandoned camp and provisions.
As always, God had provided for His people.

As the Body of Christ, the truth is that we are losing the current generation for the Lord because we aren't going outside of the walls of the Church.
We tend to be more of a hotel for the faithful rather than a hospital for the wounded.
The individual members of the Church must embody the hope & grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; we must go outside the walls of the church if we ourselves or others are ever going to experience the greatness of God's gifts.

As time has passed, God has given me the wonderful gift of being able to see grace-in-action, compassion personified, and His hand move in and among people in ways that I would have never experienced otherwise.
If there is any consolation in suffering; it is to see God move through people and through my ministry in ways that truly will have an eternal impact and outlive the weak and failing carcass I now inhabit.

I have learned that God has a soft spot for rebels; but the type that stir the pot in order to bring more of Him into their lives and through their lives.
He had a rebel in David the adulterer, in Jeremiah the manic depressant prophet, in every prophet for that matter because none of them wanted to be prophets; in Peter the traitor and in Saul the murderer.
These men and many, many more were seeking God at times and rebelled against Him at other times; eventually, all of them were harnessed by the Holy Spirit and became great men of the faith.

I have also learned that God scans the horizon for people like me; prodigals whom He knows will return.
He watches. He waits. 
And when He sees us coming, He rushes forward to greet them in compassion, grace, mercy and love.
I believe that we are to do the same. 
Yet, it must be done outside the church with as much passion and vigor as we do it from within.

In short, we must get out of the church in the compassion and love of God to get them in the church to experience the full grace of God.

Until next time, win one for the good guys.