Messy Church

I often drive past a sign near my house, it advertises Messy Church. Splattered with paint and and decorated with paintbrushes, it is obviously advertising an arty kind of session at this particular church, for kids. I like that name. Messy church.

At some point in time, for some reason, we accept the that church is a place where you only really have a place if your life fits the picture-perfect ideal we all strive to have. It's a place where marriages are strong, kids grow up and follow in the way they SHOULD go and don't stray from it, it's a place where no matter what goes on in our world, we have it all together. Because we have God.

The problem with this underlying belief is that when trials and testing come, when the marriage isn't working, when the kids play up, when the devil throws hell and it's army at us, so many feel the pressure is too great to stand in church and worship, to stand in church and believe for our family or our breakthrough. We are completely robbed of the true essence of what the House of God is, the gate of Heaven, a place where God speaks, encourages, builds up and reveals Himself. A place where the community of believers ALL FACING THE SAME LIFE STRUGGLES , can stand with us in faith and believe WITH us for our miracle. We allow ourselves to accept that if the facade can't stay in tact, that we need to withdraw, back away, get disconnected because God-forbid anyone at church know that life sucks right now, God-forbid that anyone find out that we've failed and fallen, God-forbid we show people a real look at the state of our lives as God works in us and through us in seasons of hardship and testing. 

What a shame.

I have seen people come and go, and I can totally see why. It's just too hard sometimes. It's too hard to stand on the alter and bawl your eyes out knowing that people may be wondering what's going on. It's hard to show weakness when you've stood strong and had a confession of faith for so long. It's hard to have a bad day with people around you who may end up pegging you at your weakest or lowest point. It is hard, no denying that. But the family of God was never meant to be a group of spectating individuals, we were meant to walk WITH each other through trials, meant to stand together when the devil comes for our health or our families. It is his lie that's made us believe we can't show weakness. 

The most powerful place we can be is a place of vulnerability before God and a place of humility before men. 

There is no shame in weakness. The Bible says that HIS strength is made perfect in our weakness. There is no shame in falling apart before God because things have unravelled. Being undone before God and taken to a place in life where God is all you've got is such a powerful place, no wonder satan wants to keep us from that place with bitterness, offence, shame and ultimately pride. 

Who's word have we believed that we have convinced ourselves that the hard times in life are us failing? Where in the word of God, does He tell us at all will go well for us as we walk with Him? All ENDS well but the processes He allows us to go through hurt, the pruning, we are told that gold is the product of fire. The laying of ourselves on the alter of sacrifice every day in the midst of the storm, allowing Christ in us to make us like Him, was never an easy ask.

What if we stayed? What if we allowed others to see the mess and the struggle? 

I think part of this odd theology and philosophy we develop is where we believe emotions are wrong. That we are wrong to experience pain or anger at a situation or that working through a situation of loss and despair with the natural emotions that come with that, means we aren't as holy or close to God as we should be. Well I read something in my Bible yesterday that totally blessed my heart. I was just grappling and wrestling with the whole spirit VS. soul thing. The whole 'I'm in faith over a situation but I have very real emotions here too'.  

I read the story of Lazerus. Jesus, God in the flesh loved Lazerus and his family. Jesus was notified of Lazerus illness and deliberately took a few days to respond to the call for help. He foreknew that Lazerus would be dead, that the situation was going to be used to show God's glory and that He would save the day. He KNEW it, He knew the end of the story. 

The Bible tells us that Jesus went to the tomb of His dead friend, surrounded by grieving family, he stood and wept. Not just shed a few tears, God incarnate stood and cried, He had emotions and faced them. He stood in faith KNOWING the end of the story and stood and cried with the family who had lost their loved one. How powerful is that? How flippen freeing is that? It's ok to cry! It's oK to have work through how we feel not shoving it down in denial deep inside us only to resurface another day, another year, but to deal with where we are at, deal with what people have done to us, what has been taken from us and to have a good cry about it while we are waiting on God's timing to bring our Lazerus (our dead dream, our dead promise, our dead-end situation) back to life. 

I have always believed I need to have it all together. My kids need to see me having it all together. The people I've led need to see I have it all together. That makes a good leader, right? The one who has it all together when things are falling apart? Well where is the testimony in having it all together? I want people to know the only hero in my story is Jesus. I am a mess, a hot mess without Him. He is my Rock, my hiding place, my ever present help in time of trouble. And in the times when the devil will try keep us out of the House of God, is when I want to be there! I want to show people that life sucks sometimes. That hard times come and even when the answer we thought we needed isn't the one we get, even when nothing makes sense and our prayers seem unanswered, whether we are angry and hurt at people or God Himself, there is a place for us in the family of God. A place to work through things, a place to lean on our brothers and sisters, a place to drop the facade and let people into the journey, a place to seek out the heroes who have been there, done that, got the t-shirt and made it out stronger on the other side of the storm. 

If nothing else I pray this download of what's on my mind and in my heart on my journey right now encourage you to stand firm, feet planted in the house of God, dropping the idea that church is for the perfect. It's messy, it's a family, it's for the long run. How many more stories of victory and overcoming would we hear if we truly knew the battles some of us were in right now, what the victory finally comes! 

After all, it's not about us, it's about Him. It's all about Jesus and if my mess somehow shows off His glory and saving, delivering power in my life through this process called life, then I am OK with that.

Download done. Back to cooking dinner for my army of little people. See you on Sunday ;)