We Are Not The Only Church Game In Town.

"So many of us institutional Church people are quick to disparage anything that is not of us, from us, and for us. We see ourselves as the center of all spiritual attention in our community. God's people are the ones who meet with "us" on Sunday. He is nowhere else as correctly today. There is no other church in this community but us, seems to be our assumption.

We literally fight against the idea that Christians, as members of the Universal Church and the Body of Christ at large, gather at different times, locations, in different numbers and by various expressions. 

Our location is not the only expression, and we struggle with this thought, why? Because we have never known anything besides what we know and how we've been doing it.

Not with us in our buildings? We assume something very untoward about those people, almost always. We understand so little about the diverse expressions that the Kingdom is taking in the world today. It is time for the the body of Christ to realize that the kingdom is here, and it is not only located inside our four walls this Sunday. Our expression is not the center of God's attention. There is often any number of people meeting in ways that bring no attention to themselves, and we institutional people are often unaware that it is happening. Why are we unaware? Because those gathering in other ways know better than to talk to us institutional folks about how they live out their faith. It puts a huge target on their back. They learned from experience, the hard way, to simply live out their faith in their community in quiet, before people like us. When was the last time you heard church leaders speak well of alternate expressions of kingdom taking place, apart from their own style of gathering on Sunday?

We are not enemies, but we are marking each other as so, because we continue to extend so little grace to each other in our conversations & writings.  Hostile assumptions and labels will continue to divide us, and this is to no good end.

A good dose of humility reminds us that we are not the only game in town anymore when it comes to the Kingdom. It's the new reality,  not everyone apart from us is dying on the vine. We better get used to it, and walk in peace and partnership, not "mouthyness.""

- Andy Rayner