Ekklesia

We were talking about ekklesia over at Emerging Grace yesterday. It's an interesting and meaningful conversation for me.

Pop over and read what Grace has to say because it will provide context here.



So I found this quote at Red Pill (HT The Blind Beggar); the quote is from "The Shaping of Things to Come" by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (I really need to read that book).

"The traditional church makes it quite difficult for people to negotiate its maze of cultural, theological, and social barriers in order to get “in.”… and by the time newcomers have scaled the fences built around the church, they are so socialized as churchgoers that they are not likely to be able to maintain their connection with the social groupings they came from."

That quote says a lot to me, but for me it's the reverse. I have recently had to negotiate the maze of becoming re-acclimated to society after years of being a socialized churchgoer. I am reconnecting with social groupings I had lost touch with, old friends that I had chosen in my church-life to disassociate with.

My church structure and "family" met all my socialization needs. I had many friends, so I no longer needed the friends I had had before. I lost touch with many people, simply because they weren't part of my church life.

The church became my "city". I lived in it. My life revolved around it. Everything that happened in my life was related to it. As I became more involved, I began not to have time to socialize with non-church people. I even began to cease to have time for my extended family. Church and church friends were my entire world. I worshipped them.

But one thing I have discovered in recent months is that the "old" friends were thrilled to reclaim me into their midst, when my church friends all but cast me out.

These friends are real-world people. They were almost all raised in churches (Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Unitarian) and some still have church ties. But they don't live in a christian fantasy world, set apart from reality. It's not a world where they vote according to what their Pastor teaches, where they gossip about who didn't show up to bible study, or where "ministry" interferes with family life.

These women are amazing to me. They have their God, but their church doesn't have them. They laugh and talk about life, but there is no gossip disguised as "prayer concerns". We can talk about God and faith without it being the ONLY thing we talk about.

And to think I shunned them simply because they didn't live in the "church zone".

I have learned that my circle of friends should not consist solely of people from the church I attend. I have retained a few friends from my church life and I treasure them. But I feel like life is so much richer and fuller because of my rekindled relationships in the world.

This is just one example of how God has led me into a broader definition of what is called ekklesia. It's being "the body" in every context, not just inside the church building with church people. I know many people have already learned how to do this, but for me this journey is new.