#1 This is Church

1998 (1.5 AD)

At the age of 25, I encountered God in a life altering way when He immediately responded to my first adult prayer. I transitioned to wholehearted believer in an instant (see #7 Rebirth). With my heart transformed, addictions healed, and a personal relationship established with the living God of Love, I then set out to figure out His identity and religious affiliation.  After many months of searching, looking through some useful, and some misleading spiritual doors, and enduring severe spiritual conflict, I eventually realised and accepted that much to my surprise it had been Jesus Christ who had redeemed and healed me (see #9 Today You Will Be Baptised). I had not heard any Christians I had known speak of this living God of Love, His Kingdom beyond earth, and the spirit realm the way I was experiencing them. I then entered the Christian Church, eighteen months after being born again. My path to Jesus was not typical.

When I entered church aged 27, I assumed every person in that building had experienced the power, love and grace of God the way I had, and was walking to the beat of a transformed heart filled with the Holy Spirit. I was quick to extend the same grace God had extended me, to all God’s people and assumed they would afford me the same. But early in my relationship with the church community Jesus wanted me to see His Church through His eyes.  

I was pottering around in my garden about a month after I had started attending church. Whilst my hands were busy weeding, I was reflecting on the peace of mind and sure-footedness I was now living. I had come out of a life of instability, to be married for six weeks to Mark, living in secure housing in a rental property in inner-city Brisbane, and I had a great job. I had come to know God’s identity in Christianity, I had access to the Bible to explain my spiritual experiences, and I belonged to a safe church community who shared a deep love for God. I had found my place and my people. After years of action without traction, my new life was beginning to take shape set on the firm foundation of God’s redemptive love, grace, power and truth.

As I pondered these joys, I was working in one garden bed determined to expose my flourishing mondo grass that was being swallowed up by a healthy crop of weeds. I started pulling out the weeds furthest from my mondo plants, slowly working my way toward them. As I progressed towards my actual plants, the weeds presented differently, becoming difficult to discern. Further away from my mondo grass, the weeds were a range of shapes, colours and sizes, but the weeds growing up against and among the mondo grass were near clones of the mondo.

I set about trying to separate the mondo from the weed by studying the parts of the plant I could see above the surface, but the leaf differences were not clear enough to enable me to judge. I then dug a little into the soil to view the root systems. The mondo grass had longer roots that reached down into the soil, whilst the weeds had shallow roots and could be plucked out with ease. Eventually after a few root tugging trials, I could discern the slight visual difference between plant and weed looking at the leaf structure alone. Unfortunately, some mondo grass plants were pulled out in the process as their root systems were too entangled with that of the weeds.

I pondered why I had never noticed this clever masquerade in nature before. It was as though the weed had the intelligence to seek out and hide among a host plant it closely resembled, entangling itself in its identity and nutrients, all to ensure its own health and longevity.

Then the Holy Spirit broke into my thoughts, gently saying, This is church. There was no judgment, condemnation, or criticism in the tone, simply a guiding introduction to all church, spoken with love.

Those three words immediately grounded my emotional giddiness towards church people, and my next thought went to proximity. The nearer to the authentic plant, or authentic Christian, the cleverer the masquerade of the weed or counterfeit person. I had spent my first few weeks in church thinking everyone was as awed, transformed and in love with God as I was. With so many fun weekend options, why else would you give up your Sundays to attend if not for personally knowing the Creator of the Universe? But those three words, This is church, immediately taught me that church is filled with planted, flourishing children of God, with clever mimicking weeds growing right up close among them.

Thereafter, I approached church with emotional sobriety. Experiences outside church had taught me the breadth and depth of character of many people, some loving, some evil, and some just drifting with the current. So instead of leaving those lessons at the church entry door, I brought that knowledge, further purified by God's Spirit, with me into church (God does not waste any of our experiences). I was careful who I received teaching or prayer from, and who to invite into my inner circle. I watched not with fear or judgement, but caution, following the Holy Spirit’s lead and tuition, looking below surface appearances.

Whether a person sat in the front row or back row, had been in church for a day or a decade; whether a person was lead pastor, married to the youth pastor, besties with a worship leader or a greeter at the door; none of these factors legitimised anyone as planted and rooted in God’s love, truth and dignity. Whilst treating all people with love and respect, I waited on the Lord to show me who was genuinely surrendered to his love and lead, and open to His full biblical truth (see #6 What’s the go with this Pastor).

The three words God spoke to me in my garden during those early church days set me up with the wisdom and grace to accept that all churches are imperfect. God prepared me to be responsible for my own spiritual choices and to not be naïve or childish in my pursuit for His truth. I grew to understand the importance and skill of identifying the weeds within my own heart and mind first, removing them through continual surrendering to God and His Word (Bible), to heal and grow my spiritual, mental and emotional wellbeing.

I do not expect everyone in church to be an authentic Christian. Church is a public place, as accessible to all in the community as your local shopping centre. There will always be people who come once or twice for a browse, and some who come regularly to enjoy the air conditioning and social company, hanging around sometimes for years without growth, blind to spiritual freedoms available to them. Some attend to follow family tradition, and some to be seen as righteous to other people, but unwilling to fully surrender to Christ to receive His true righteousness. Some people will come to church to manipulate and maneuver intent on advancing themselves somehow, or on rare occasions to be malicious or predatory towards individuals or the wider church community (all churches are required to follow legal and biblical processes to deal with law breakers, troublemakers and disputes). And many people in church will earnestly seek God, putting their roots deep down into His Word to grow authentically and obviously, extending God’s love to others.

Whilst living life alongside church members for over 25 years, I have not held unreasonable expectations of them, for they are not God. I have spent much quality time with many imperfect people in church who are the most authentic vessels of God’s love, wisdom, generosity, kindness, grace and power I have known. I have served among them to witness God do extraordinary things no human could lay claim to.

God knows His church and chooses to live among and bless His congregations, plant and weed alike, despite His awareness of the weed’s presence. We are each responsible for praying and discerning plant and weed within our own heart and mind, and other people’s. I am not removing responsibility of abuse from abusers; I support justice and compassion for victims in all environments. I believe it was compassion and protection that led God when He spoke to me that day, for He knew what I had been through over my lifetime, and He was lovingly equipping me with wisdom to navigate church relationships safely. 

When God spoke that day, I knew without doubt He was not advising me to stay away from church. Before attending church, I had lived eighteen months with my spiritual eyes open whilst discerning the Holy Spirit’s leading, without a church community or Bible. I knew firsthand the complexity and danger of the spirit realm outside of God’s community; there was no way I was leaving the collective love, safety and wisdom of Christ’s church. I firmly knew Christianity was not a solo lifestyle, and as much as my past experiences gave me good reason not to trust people, I knew relationship with other believers was essential for my growth.  

Actively living life among a Christian community has grown me in wisdom, humility, health, dignity, freedom and loving relationships, miraculously beyond my starting line. The friendships I have gained whilst sharing life, adventures, serving others, and witnessing Gods beautiful heart and hand at work through others has far outweighed the risk of being hurt by people.

Church community enables the Holy Spirit to commune among us, growing us better together in ways we could not without God’s supernatural, loving touch. I will always be an imperfect, active member of my local Christian Church, keeping God on the throne. I am grateful to have learnt early to be responsible for my own spiritual choices and growth, taking care to work with God to weed the garden of my own heart and mind, and not let the weeds of others entangle my growth.

God’s Word

Matthew 13:24-30 He [Jesus] set another parable before them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds also among the wheat, and went away. But when the blade sprang up and produced grain, then the darnel weeds appeared also. The servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where did these darnel weeds come from?’

“He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them up?’

“But he said, ‘No, lest perhaps while you gather up the darnel weeds, you root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First, gather up the darnel weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Hebrews 10:24-25 Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.