Why I Love Our Church

I realize that I have not posted anything very thoughtful lately. It is certainly not been because I have not been thoughtful. As Daniel can attest, I am always thoughtful, often to my own detriment. But I just haven't had the stamina to sort through all the feelings, thoughts, and lessons of the last year. It's been a crazy year.

I guess through all of the busyness and upheaval, God has been continuing to challenge me, or more accurately said, change my mind about things. Not foundational things, of course. Just taking me deeper, and challenging my complacency and my assumptions about what he has called me to.

It started with the Perspectives missions class I took starting in January--it began to put together for me how missions is about God's glory and God's name being known among the nations. They speak routinely about God's people being blessed to be a blessing to others, that the people of the earth will bless God. I had always thought about missions as something that happens "over there"; it was certainly not anything I ever felt called to. After the class, I began to see that mission was something that every believer is called to, for the glory of God.

During the class, I started to read a book called Total Church. Written by two pastors of a house church network in England, the book is to local missions as Perspectives is to global missions. Its view of church refreshed me. It said that Truth is important, that we can be theologically conservative (indeed, reformed) while adapting our methodology to reach a community distant from God. It reminded me that the church is about redemption, a place for broken people. It held that redemptive power is from the gospel, the good news about Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross for our sin and brokenness. But it doesn't stop there--the good news is also about the transformational power in the gospel in the lives of people who once lived as enemies of God and whose lives were in ruins because of it. The authors believe that this is played out in community--seeing people who don't know Jesus transformed by Christian love and mercy and seeing those who are in relationship with God transformed by grace and the encouragement of the body. The book is about mission, the gospel, and community.

Then I went to the Philippines, where I worked with girls who had been sexually abused by those in their lives who should love and protect them. And I saw their lives transformed by the good news about Jesus. I saw their love for God, despite their pain and their hope in His redemptive power. I saw first-hand the power of redemptive love in their lives.

All these things made me yearn for more. I wanted to be challenged to be used by God in his redemptive work, to see people made whole for his glory. I didn't just want to attend on Sunday morning. I didn't want church to happen just inside of a building. Enter Redemption Bible Church.

We almost didn't find it. To be honest, God found it for us. We visited an Acts 29 church that was way to far away for us to attend, and asked for a recommendation. "No kidding! You live in Palatine? There's a brand new church plant there that just launched a last week!" Daniel and I went home and checked their website. This is what we read:

Our mission at Redemption is to see rebels redeemed for the glory of God and the good of our city.
Our vision is to be a gospel-saturated church. This means:
1. We want to see lives transformed by the gospel
2. We want to see the gospel lived out in community
3. As a community we want to take the gospel to our city.

We listened to the previous week's sermon. The pastor, Ryan, spoke with passion and conviction about the gospel. He called both believers and unbelievers to repentance. The Hallelujah Chorus played. We had found our church. Now we just had to attend.

We've been going to this church for just over a month, and it is home. I don't say this lightly--it has been long journey home. But among this body of people I have been challenged, encouraged, and healed. I expected to be a part of a gospel-centered, missional church, where it was okay to be broken and in need of healing. It is that. But I guess I had only thought about it in terms of what this church could offer to outsiders. What I hadn't expected is the healing that has taken place in my own heart since I've been there. I've realized so much more fully that the gospel isn't just something that I'm done with now that I have believed. I must cling to it every day.

What I love about this church is that it calls me to repent of my lack of belief in God's grace. I know that my forgiveness has been purchased by the blood of Christ--that God calls me his child and gives me Christ's righteousness. In practice, though, I believe that God loves me less if I fail and more if I do well. This has caused me so much pain in the past 10 years, because I know my heart. I have striven and striven, and still fight the same sins over and over. Even though I haven't been as outwardly rebellious as some, my heart is prideful and prone to love other things more than God. I wondered how I could possibly be his child with such a hard heart. I am beginning to realize that the Holy Spirit is working on me, and that I need to fall on his grace, even on my best days. I am learning that the good news is that, for me, God does not sit on a throne of judgment, but a throne of grace.

Part of the reason I am coming to believe this more and more is seeing other people in the community wrestle through the same issues. Our first time at the community group, we heard people confess their struggles with pride and fear and lack of proper motives in their walk with God. And I thought, "Really? I'm not the only one who's messed up?" I really have never been in a church situation where it was completely okay to confess these deep sins of the heart. I believe that there is a power in it. It releases us from the bondage of secrecy and allows other believers to speak grace into our lives. It makes it okay to not be okay, but challenges to press on and fight. It allows us to see redemption played out in the community of faith, and gives us more faith in our Savior's promise to complete the work he started. And it makes us a family.

I love this church. I love the people. I love its commitment to the gospel, to God's glory, and to the lost. I am so thankful to be a part of it, and amazed to see God's rich provision.

So this was long. The other reason that I hesitated to post. Bless you if you have read it all. It is my heart.