In church today (because I chose to be) in Waco for the second time in over a year and a half, I suddenly had an enormous 'What if? supposition'.....
As a former 'Christian' - now an honest, searching, seeking woman - who on purpose stepped out of the 'line/ norm/ expected' of what I had been raised under and beaten up with for the most part, I have a wonder.....
What if church isn't for the outsider anyway? What if church is just for the believers to follow the instruction to 'meet together to encourage and teach and lift up' one another?
There's no comment/ instruction/ commandment anywhere in the Bible for the unbeliever to come into the church. Why would they? They wouldn't understand it.....at best, they might think Christians are crazy and passionate - at worst, crazy and deluded!!
What instruction IS there is for the believers to TAKE the light that they have out into the darkness - for them to be the 'hands and feet of Christ'.
When I think of all the wasted years spent feeling guilty about not inviting enough people to church......... It's a crippling philosophy to burden someone with guilt for not inviting someone else to something they wouldn't understand anyway!
I need church - a non-believer does not. They aren't supposed to 'fit in'. They need the hands and feet of Christ which can only come to them through those who are supposed to be God's kids and Christ's brothers and sisters.
And by the way, for the most part, 'hands and feet' are not people who give out tracts or knock on complete strangers' doors and tell them they're going to hell or memorize 100 verses at summer camp. The 'hands and feet' of Christ are people like Joseph who are commendable no matter where they are: a beloved son with a beautiful coat, a despised brother, a slave to Potiphar, the object of lust, an innocent prisoner, a forgotten man, the head of Pharoah's government and that same despised brother showing incredible mercy to brother's who sold him and lied about his death.
So......what if?
