Reflections to “Church on the Other Side”

This morning the sun peeked through the blinds letting the neurons in my brain know that it was time for them to start stretching out of their sleepy slumber. I, however, was not greeted by the warm, happy glow most coffee commercials display. I was greeted instead with a glum “something’s wrong with me” weight.

Most of my days are lived from the “glass is half full” side of life, but this morning was different. It just was one of those days, one of those days where you seem to not be in the right rhythm, your step is just a little bit off, your heart is not quit in sync, and your prayers feel about as spiritually rich as bad cup of gas station coffee. It was just one of those days, so after taking care of the dogs and kissing the wife, I doctored up my half and half with just enough coffee to make it a light brown color, added enough sugar to bake a cake, and found myself a comfortable spot in our Ikea rain drop-shaped chair on our back porch.

Questions raced through my mind: Was something wrong with me? Was this God’s weird way of pointing out an incongruence in my life and faith? Was there something in need of being confessed? Just why did I feel the way I did? My wife joined me on the porched and asked these questions again, leaving me with a second round of thoughts and concerns rushing in the mess of my mind. Why do I feel this way? Why does my gut and spirit feel uneasy?

Then a thought struck like a feather landing on a park bench, not causing too much commotion yet somehow enough to cause me to notice. The phrase “it’s life” came to mind. Could the answer to my questions really be as simple as “it’s just life”? It is just life these days: the change of jobs, rhythms, commutes, paychecks, dreams, and all of the other things that somehow go into forming the framework of what we unconsciously live our lives through. In case you cannot tell, we are in a personal season of change. We are changing from being known as “such-in-such” employees to, well, to be honest, I don’t know what our next positions will be. We are also changing from being non-formal learners to “I’m-taking-out-how-much-for-a-student-loan?!” learners. Then, add into the mix the changing of our social calender to allow time to accomplish this “big-hairy-audacious-goal” called a master’s degree, and it all adds up to a lot of life change at once. Using this lens to view the unsettledness in my gut this morning, I realized the phrase “it’s just life” seems to fit and not only fit but also make sense after all.

As I sat at my desk trying to put words to the emotions swirling around inside, I began to wonder if these feelings where similar to what Brain McLaren was feeling as he penned The Church on the Other side? As I reflect on words of this book, I feel like it is one man talking to anther, both standing knee deep in the waves looking out over the horizon, both realizing something new is coming, something that both don’t quite fully understand yet but also undeniably know is coming their way.

I feel like in The Church on the Other Side McLaren tried to put words to that uneasy, weighty feeling in our guts that we often find ourselves walking around with. Some try to discredit those feelings as sin, as something we need to confess away, or as something inherently wrong (much like I was doing this morning on my back porch with my own thoughts and questions), but I feel like this book is trying to scream “don’t discredit this or repent of those feelings! rather embrace them as the indicators they are; indicators of the change we are in, that we have now entered a time where those feelings are ‘just life.’ ” McLaren does what all great leaders are called to do: put words to what we all know to be true but just haven’t figured out how to say yet.

I see The Church on the Other Side addressing these feelings in three different ways. The first is by asking if we even recognize that a new ship is coming in. Do we even notice the world changing around us? Do we see a new way of living, of thinking, of doing life about to land on the shores of the American church? Do we see what’s coming in the near future?

Second, the book asks if we are ready for this new way of life. Are our current systems able to handle this change? Just as new docks have to be built to handle bigger, deeper, and wider ships, so the “cultural docks” in the American church are in need of repair and in some cases being burned down and replaced. Are we creating environments and organizational structures that will embrace those living life differently, or will they be as abrasive and uncomfortable as shoving square pegs in round holes?

The last way I see McLaren addressing the changes is by asking the hard question of how we will engage our new guest. Will we embrace and love this new way of living or will we build walls and begin cultural wars for how we think life should be done? Can the Gospel of Christ put on new cultural clothes and live and thrive in a new world? Will we, the organizational keepers of the American church, allow such a thing to happen?

Maybe the sales of coffee, half and half, Ikea raindrop chairs and this book should increase. Maybe leaders should find themselves enjoying these as they listen to the bird serenading them, and maybe, just maybe, leaders across America should start wrestling with the issues of culture change that arise from with those pages. Then maybe we should start preparing and leading towards them so that when the day of change finally arrives, the church of America, and more importantly the great news of Christ we carry with us, will be ready to welcome our new guest. May the heavy weight of change sit on us all until that day comes.