The Uncluttered Church

The church suffers from clutter.  Most of us know about clutter.  Clutter fills our homes and our lives.  In our homes cars disappear from garages and in our lives the real is overwhelmed by our personal trivial pursuits.  Our churches have gotten so filled with clutter that Jesus has become hard to see, or absent.  What really adds to the clutter of the church are those things which have no real spiritual value, but are required if the institutional part of the church is to continue to survive.    

The institutional church has an insatiable appetite for clutter.  While we often think of the church birthed on Pentecost as the church in its purest form, it took a little longer than a few verses for it to be transformed from a spiritual community into a demanding institutional monster.  If we are looking for the church in its purest form, we must look to Jesus.  In Ephesians 1:22-23 the Word of God speaks of Jesus' relationship to the church by saying, " (God) has made Him the head over all things for the church, which is His body,..."  

As we see the incarnate Jesus walking among us, we see the embodiment of the church.  We see the church in its purest form.  Unlike the unfolding picture of the church being sucked in by the demands of its institutional life, the church seen alive through the body of Christ seeks nothing for itself.  It is the purest form of a sacrificial and loving community that has ever existed on the earth.  He embodies the church of the Kingdom of God and calls us to give it life through our faithful living.