FRIDAY
This week for the devotional, since we had serve Sunday last Sunday and I was on vacation last week, I asked a few people in the church to share how they have experienced church/fellow believers as sacred space.
by Kurt Schmidt
Recently I read a short essay by Carl Trueman titled “When Worship Becomes Theater.1” In it he talks about the sacred aspects of Christian worship and the possibility of missing or losing them. In the context of worship, Trueman points out that it must be, “… not primarily an aesthetic experience but a response to divine grace. Our quest for the sacred must be a dogmatic one if it is to be a Christian one.” And just as important, “It must also be transformative.”
What sacred looks like in worship seems to me to also apply to what John has been teaching on: “The Temple - sacred space between the garden and the city.” For me specifically, this is in response to the question, “How have I experienced God through or with other believers in the sacred space of church?”
Friendship and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ are both good and right. But I submit that if these are only aesthetic in nature (i.e., they feel good or satisfy a genuine, healthy, God given need for community but little else) or they are not ultimately transformative, then we are missing a sacred aspect of being in the body of Christ. Karen has called this experience, “Being part of a functional family.”
The concept of family needs little explanation unless you have grown up in a seriously dysfunctional or non-existent family. Regardless, we all feel our need of it; Most keenly when it hasn’t been experienced or experienced well. And we have both a model for it and a promise of it in scripture.
But what does functional mean? Like other complex ideas, it is probably easier to define what it doesn’t mean. Very likely we all have some varied and uniquely individual ideas and experiences. For example, Karen can list three or four specific qualities that make a relationship functional for her. But for me, I will say that it is a lot like the answer to the question “What is art?” Which is - to quote a former Supreme Court justice concerning a less wholesome topic - “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”
Coming full circle then, for me I define functional as being both transformative and dogmatic. In practice this means I have experienced the sacredness of a functional family through three Christian relationships, that are full of truths that challenge and change me, that point me ever back to Christ and the hope he offers, and that are motivated by a genuine (and authentically felt) love.
I submit from experience that there are those in the body who know more deeply than others both the hope for and the need of such a sacred relationship. They are those who may be more inconvenient or difficult to be around, or who are different from the norm (i.e., might feel/see/sense/think more or less deeply,) or have never felt part of the in crowd, or who can relate to a relatable list of other characteristics that make them what Brant Hansen calls (and proudly self-identifies as) a “misfit2,”
Truly blessed are those who have experience the sacred in this way. If so, do not forsake it or take it lightly for that is easy to do. Unfortunately, my experience suggests they are far less common than they should be. They cannot be forced. They can be scary to enter into for, when they are working, you will hear things you don’t want to, but desperately need to hear. But they are a truly sacred experience of the divine.
I would very much like to hear your thoughts and experiences related to this topic in any way! Do you have such a relationship? Do you desire it but don’t have it? Are you, or do you know, a misfit? Are you aware of and sympathetic to misfits? Other reactions or thoughts?
1 – https://firstthings.com/when-worship-becomes-theater/
2 – “Blessed are the Misfits” – Brant Hansen (ISBN 978-0-7180-9631-1)