what would it look like

think with me for a minute...

If we knew nothing of our 'church heritage', then discovered Jesus..... what would 'church' look like?

no matter if you're Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Assembly, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Christian or any other religious brand....

no matter if your parents 'took you to church' every time the doors were open or if you never 'went to church' much at all....

no matter if you were raised very 'fundamentalist arch-conservative' or very 'holy-roller'...

what would happen if we could slough that off like a snake loses its skin?

I know we are all a product of our experience. I get that. And I realize that's a huge part of who we are...

But with regard to spirituality and religion and such, it seems that THAT part of our 'make-up' is more 'who we are' than any other part of our upbringing experience.

Why do we subconsciously assign greater importance to religious tradition than other traditions?

For example, we used to visit the cemetery on Memorial Day (by we, I mean most people in my extended family). We would bring flowers and other decorative items and make the graves prettier... then we would actually take our blankets and spread them out ON TOP OF THE GRAVES of our dearly departed loved ones! Then we would eat! while sitting on top of their graves!

Here, as I sit and reflect on that, there is nothing that appears sane about that. I can think of no reason we should EVER eat in a cemetery... much less on someone's grave! Especially for believers who know the soul and body separated at death...

Anyhow, I digress. I know I may offend some of you by saying what I just said... you may still hold 'decoration day' or your version of 'dinner on the grounds' as a sacred tradition. I don't. I respect your tradition, but I choose not to participate...

and for most folks, it is ok that I don't take part in their tradition.

But when we place that tradition in a spiritual context (and, to give it weight, we attach Bible significance to it through some weird misapplied contortion), aaahhh, NOW we got a problem!

now my tradition turns into something YOU need to apply to your life.

and if you don't... well, we really can't be friends.

Ridiculous, isn't it?

So the question is still: what would it look like if we tried to 'cast off' our learned behavior and just tried to read the Bible and live in His Love?

And, by the way, I am not talking about replacing our traditions with those of our fathers or grandfathers or even the traditions of those who walked with Jesus.

I am talking about truly letting God's Word become alive in our lives and allowing it to speak to us and mold us into exactly what He wants us to be.

what would that look like?

I suggest that 'church' would look a lot less 'institutional'... and may not include things like buildings and budgets and boards of directors.

and it most certainly wouldn't be a 'place' we 'attended' once or twice a week.

Blessings!