The Line

What does and doesn’t belong ‘in church’? And who gets to decide? Those are important questions which are sometimes fought over. And perhaps we kind find some help with an unexpected phrase: King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti.

You may think I accidentally capitalized all of that, but I didn’t. It’s a phrase every high school biology student needs in order to make it through their final exam. Why? Because it’s an acrostic to help remember how ‘naming’ works in biology: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti. Now maybe you’ll be able to remember it decades later like I just did.

As human beings, we have a ‘thing’ about drawing lines. It helps us break down our world into bite-sized chunks we can manage more easily. That’s what we’re doing with ‘kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species’. We draw 7 lines around every organism on our planet to keep track of the differences between it and everything else. What ‘kingdom’ is it – plant or animal – and then we draw the line. Inside that kingdom, what phyla is it – and then we draw that line. I’m sure you get the point.

The problem with all of this is that it’s not always easy to draw these lines even when it comes to material realities. Nobody really knows what to do with gracilarioid Algae, for example, because it seems to cross lines in a few places. How much more difficult is all of this when it comes to non-material realities (like where we draw the line around what does and doesn’t belong in church or where ‘they journey’ may begin for any particular person)?

I say all of this on my way to this acknowledgement: I know there is a difference between the thoughts we think about scripture and the thoughts we think because of scripture (and how it has changed us). There is a difference between talking about Christ and talking as a person that’s found Him. As an example a filmmaker could choose to make a film about Christ (as Mel Gibson did with The Passion of the Christ) or you could choose to make a film about life and you just happen to be a Christian. Perhaps both of these endeavors have great value – and perhaps both of them have their place in what we discuss as a community of Christ followers.

I’ve always been a fan of ‘church for the life you’re already living’ and ‘church for the stuff you’re already facing’. I love being a part of diverse communities where we share a broad range of attention, reflecting on the fact that we’re all at a different place in the journey.

All of this makes me want to challenge people about the person of Christ while I also challenge them about the kind of life He makes possible. It’s building towards the same decision from two different directions. There are conclusions which proceed from a decision about Christ and there are conclusions which draw us to the person of Christ. One starts with scripture, the other starts with life. I think taking about all of it will draw more people into the conversation. Perhaps both of them are on ‘this’ side of the line when it comes to what does and doesn’t belong in church.

Let’s build communities of Jesus-followers that are talking about the conclusions that proceed from a decision about Him as well as the conclusions that lead to Him. Think about it.

Westside’s launch Sunday is coming up on September 7th. It’s something you won’t want to miss.

I hope you can join us on Sunday or tune into the podcast through the week, and I hope you have a great weekend.

Chris