Hi, I'm Jeffrey, and I'm "Unchurched"

*I've moved, and my posts have come with me! Check out my new blog at www.jeffrey-davis.net/blog/*

I like News 2's Jamey Tucker's blog: Faith and Ethics. Yesterday he did a post about Unchurched Americans based on a Barna study and an interview with Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist church here in Nashville.

In his post he did mention, "I know, many will say you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. But even those who responded that they never go to church agree that church is where you build a foundation for the Christian life."

[Pause to choose my words carefully.] I feel that the very use of the word "unchurched" (in this context anyway) is a misnomer. If you have spent any amount of time interacting here, you know that I feel it is important to understand that we who follow Christ are the church. To say that we go to it on a regular basis is to more easily allow ourselves to disconnect and further compartmentalize our lives. I know, I know, many will say, "Come on Jeffrey, you know what I mean." Yes, I know what the term ["go to church"] is supposed to mean, but I feel it too has morphed into an unhealthy ideology.

That said, is it important to gather together in worship with other believers? Yes, I believe wholeheartedly that it is. However, what form that gathering takes may vary greatly. Does one form, oh let's say like hiking Radnor Lake on Sunday morning with some friends (like my wife and I will do this Sunday), aspire to a lower standard of Godliness or worship than another maybe more traditional form? I truly do not think so. I personally connect with, hear from, and worship God through His beautiful creation in the most intimate of ways--as do my wife and the other couple we'll be joining with on Sunday morning.

What's important? Worship. Connection with God in personal, communal, and intimate ways. If that happens on a trail or in a pew, either way, worship is what matters. Consequently, it is not only on that trail or in that pew that worship could happen. It is in the every day. Its at work. Its at the gym. Its with our neighbors. Its at the store. Its a life. Worship is a life--not something we do once, twice, thrice a week, or however often you gather in a church building.

Unchurched, in my opinion, should not be a term attributed to Christians who merely choose not to worship on a weekly basis in a building designated to the gathering of the Church. IF it is to describe anything at all, it should be to describe those who haven't a relationship with Christ that saturates their daily lives--whether they're "in church" or not. How many, I wonder, who leave their butt prints in the pews Sunday after Sunday would fall into that category? I, for sure, have been there.

I like what the News 2 story this morning had to say about this topic in one of their stories. They said, "Most people discount Christianity because they have a neighbor or co-worker who claim to be one yet doesn't live like it. Changing that is a lot more difficult than putting on an Easter program."

So by the current terminology I guess you'd call me "unchurched". Yet how can that be when Christ teaches that I, as are all who are called by His name, am a vital part of it?