The Danger of Church – Being Arrows Out

Hello Everyone-

I hope you’re having a beautiful day.  I got to teach at the Kitsap Rescue Mission yesterday and today get to go to a conference my church is putting on, so I’m feeling blessed for those reasons.

 

My church (newlife) talks a lot about how we should live “arrows out” and the dangers of living “arrows in”.  In other words, to follow Jesus is to be others-centered and not self-centered.  I think this is one of the most important, and hardest, things to do in life.  I think teaching, leading, and acting this way is a fundamental calling of the church, we are Christ’s Body after all.

 

The danger of church that I’ve seen, contributed to, and experienced is that we become a self-licking ice cream cone.  That is to say, individually we have our “arrows out”, but it is only toward others in the church.  So, the church’s arrows are actually pointed in.  In short, we’re others-centered toward church goers, but not the rest of our communities.  This is particularly easy to do when our church is awesome and has changed our lives in life-giving and transformative ways.  For all intents and purposes we then start to idolize our specific church.

 

This is why I try and live, teach, talk, study, etc. first and foremost for the Kingdom of God, and view churches as groups/places to experience it more fully AND as groups/places called to show the Kingdom more and more to the world.  David Bosch has a great summary of this in which he contrasts the arrows all the way out Kingdom with the danger of an arrows partially in church:

 

“‘Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.'” (David A. Bosch, Transforming Mission p. 378)

 

What do you think?

 

Grace and peace,
Lang