The Stobbe Monkey! Sage!

my new niece! haylee!

"Church for the unchurched."

My husband and I were having this discussion the other day and I would like to put it out there for comment and debate.

We were discussing what we refer to as Christian culture. OK - and we don't like it much. Sometimes it is so hard to separate church, Christianity and current Christian culture.

One of our favourites is "church for the unchurched". It seems like such a trend AND so many churches claim to be just that. Doesn't that, in a sense, turn "church for the unchurched" into exactly the opposite?

Putting "community" in the name of a church. Lots of places do that now. We hypothesize that it is replacing the trend of naming churches "The " (which was a church-for-the-unchurched thing for a while). Now, our church is one of these "community" churches and we LOVE it. This is by no means a shot at them. In fact, we feel that they fulfill their name. It's just this: We have seen some renaming of churches with placing the word community in them. Is the a reflection of God changing the church? A sign of repentance perhaps for those who don't feel they are in the community enough? A way of making the congregation feel better about their role in the community? A Christian trend that is perhaps insulting to those in the surrounding secular community? I don't know. I've just been thinking a lot about it.

I guess lately I just wonder about these things. Why isn't it good enough that we just go along and live out our Christian lives in the community and next to the unchurched? Why do we feel the need to advertise our status to others? Shouldn't it be obvious? But then again, what should our lives look like? I suppose that is how some of these Christian culture things become so trendy - A new revelation institutionalized.

Which leads me to a paradox of sorts. It strikes me that what I would propose would just be another form of church for the unchurched

*SIGH*

Please weigh in on this, I would love to hear your thoughts!