The false church/life dichotomy

I recently read this post on another blog about mixed martial arts groups forming at church. And as usual people some people have an (albeit mild) problem with this. Generally you can state the problem as this:

“oh sure, that’s a gathering…but it’s not a Christian gathering”.

It bothers me to see this constant distinction between “getting together” and “church”. I don’t see how this distinction is Biblical. The activity is clearly different whether you are getting together to eat, or to watch a game or movie, or go to a worship service or a Bible study. However, the community and continuity of our Christian lives, both together and individually, should not be.

To me, this gathering-vs-christian-gathering dichotomy reinforces the whole “this is my church life but this is my regular life” problem. We act one way at church building–in the language we use, the way we dress, the music we listen to, and the way we think. Then we flip a switch when we leave. Those of us who have been members of large churches know that this change often happens before you leave the crowded parking lot!

A big part of the problem is the ministry and program concepts where we route activity through process and procedure, sign everything in triplicate, put things on the calendar and wait for final approval from committee. Obviously we have to be organized in some form to be the proverbial good stewards of what we’ve been given. But it’s easy to overthink things and displace the original intents and goals with the little-g god of policy.

To atheists, agnostics, unbelievers, non-church-goers, etc. These false dichotomies are obvious, and they translate into hypocrisy. They also translate into gimmick, like God and/or The Christians wants to trick you into coming to church.

I think that if we can start getting away from our industrialized model of church factories and move into a model of church communities, these problems will take care of themselves. However that change must be real, it can’t just be form only. We have to get to the point where our lives as followers and believers of Christ have continuity of purpose. And this must happen both individually, as groups within the church, and the church itself.