by Sean Graham
My Christian community is undergoing change. We were planted as a community church, but have discovered over time that we are more than that, and less than that. As part of our changes, we are beginning to identify ourselves without one word - that word being “church”. It is always interesting to see the responses of people when change occurs. In this case, the word “church” elicits a lot of response and emotion. Some people are very excited for us to drop the word “church”, not that we would ever stop being the body of Christ, but we would stop using the word that is culturally charged and prohibited to many folks. Some people are not so sure. For those that are not so sure, I would like to elaborate.
“Church” is similar to the word “Christian”. In West Coast Canada, the word “Christian” in the general populace has very negative connotations. Yet, the same people are very open to Jesus’ teachings of grace and love when not shrouded in language that triggers a negative response. So it is with the word “church”. Most people associate the word “church” with religious control, boredom and archaic ideas that exclude many people and not with the life-giving energy that flows through a community living in a spirit of Love. Being rooted in the ancient story does not require us to use the same language we have always used. In fact, the body of Christ has reinvented itself in every generation. The followers of Christ have always found ways to connect with the broader culture they live in and invite those within that culture to experience Jesus Christ. A great example of this is how the followers of Christ took a pagan, German celebration and infused the story of Christ with it to create Christmas. Christmas is an example of Christians finding a way to bring Christ into the current day’s culture. The Christmas tree, the garland, the decorations that we do at Christmas time, are all from the original pagan German celebration. Yet, the followers of Christ found a way to bring Christ into this tradition.
The culture we live in today is a post-Christian culture. Today, the burden of those that follow Christ is to continually find new ways to bring the love of Christ to bear on the culture we are a part of. This means new forms and new containers that hold the love of God. The word “church” harkens peoples’ imagination to one form, but the Spirit of God is always trying to pour new wine. For those of us who are Christians, we are at times ironically afraid of losing our words - which are never sacred, and our structures - which are never sacred. In that place of fear, we impede ourselves from reaching the culture God has called us to love with the redemptive love of Christ.
Thus being said, our community, with a little bit of fear and a little bit of trepidation, but more faith and courage, moves from “Cove Community Church” to “The Cove”. To be clear though, the word “Cove” is not our identifier, what comes next is:
We are a growing spiritual recovery community, stumbling towards Christ and we are a growing transformation network, propelled by Love.
Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we delve into these two statements.
If you are reading this blog, but not actively part of our community, our hope is that this will kindle your imagination and inspire your following of Christ. If you live nearby, we invite you to be part of re-imagining what it will look like to bring the redemptive power of Christ’s love to those on the West Coast. Start your recovery and be propelled by Love. Everyone is welcome. Come help us figure out how to follow Christ and create new containers that have the gospel as its content.
We gather on Sundays at 4 pm at Mt. Seymour United (1200 Parkgate Avenue, North Vancouver).