Hope Like Nothing Else

Today I experienced Church, the capital "C" kind of Church.  I don’t mean the buildings where many people gather on Sundays to worship.  Yes, I did spend time in what people think of when they think of “church”, but we don’t always find the “Church” in these buildings and in these buildings is not the only place where we find the “Church.”

What we should think of when we hear “Church” is the vast and hodgepodge group of people around the world who are followers of Jesus.

Today I saw the Church manifest itself as:

• People who stand up and reach out to support each other when it means getting nothing in return and even if it means giving up so much more than they ever bargained for.
• The men and women who preach Truth.  Those people who help us to remember our salvation and challenge us to discover how to respond with abundant love.
• The children who participate in a different yet just as vital role in the Church.  The young ones who more often than not understand better than adults the grace, love, and surrender God asks of God's people.
• The people who aren’t willing to let their relationship with God decay, who seek out every opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with God, even doing what our culture tells us is not “cool” to do.
• The people who know that Church is not one hour a week, rather they daily and hourly live a life of being available to say “yes” to what God calls them to be and do.
• Groups of people who work together and in the end accomplish far more of God’s will than anyone thought was possible.
• People who are willing to be vulnerable, to share the profound pain and joy of God working in their lives.
• The individuals spending their lives passionately spreading the word about how God’s love is being manifested in our world.
• The leaders who acknowledge they do not have all the answers and are willing to submit to God’s leading.
• People willing to sit in silence, to listen to God, to be honest about what they hear.

I wish more people would think of what I experienced today when they hear the word “Church.”  As a collective group of people we have too often failed to be what God intended God’s people to be.  However, when we are able to push aside all the wreckage of our sin and failure and see glimpses like I saw today, the Church gives me hope like nothing else in this world.