Church

NEW - See comments by Jim - Good Stuff!!

"Men & Boys go to church and dream of fishing, I go to the river and think about God"-unknown

I hate institutions, with their rules & rulers - politics & politicians . Most churches are institutions.

About ten years ago my wife and I were done with church. We loved God as much as ever, maybe more, but who were these people we were hanging out with several days of the week. Negative, Judgemental, Uber-conservative, Non-intellectual folks for the most part. People that we would never choose to hang out with under normal circumstances.

So we decided to start our own home church. The first week we invited everyone on our block. I was going to bring "a message" and man was I nervous. We had one girl show up. A few more girls started but we were striking out with the men. I turned it over to my wife and it became a women's Bible Study.

About the same time an old friend connected with us and told us he was starting a new church. It was going to be unlike anything we have ever seen at church - and it was.
It was fresh - there were no politics - people that didn't go to church were coming - people were meeting God and lives were changed.

It took about seven years to become an Institution. Now at 10 years old its just another church with the same politics ,infighting, and on and on. I still go there, but it is much like any other duty in life. It is no longer an instrument that brings me closer to God.

How can we "Do Church" in a way that it stays real - organic - pure - all about the love of God. Is there any way humans can meet together without being so human.

This is what I crave, this is what I need. I don't know how to do it! Do you? - Post your thoughts.

In The Beginning

I was told last week that the reason I have so much trouble with some things in this new information based world is that I am a digital immigrant not a digital native (i.e. if you can never remember life without computers and the www.)

So I decided to jump In and try to fully embrace the new world and what better way than having one's own blog. This is not so much intimidating on a technical level, but actually more of a literary level. Do I have anything to say that is interesting? I have no doubt that I am capable of commenting intelligently on others thoughts. But original thought is a bit more intimidating.

I hope something will get posted here that is worth your time to read it, although chances are the worthwhile stuff may come in the responses to the blather that I will post.