The Slow, Beautiful Goodness That Is The Local Church

Christians in the blogosphere spend a good deal of time critiquing the church.  I spend a good deal of time on critique as well.  That’s fair enough.  The church deserves the criticism.  We need the accountability and opinions to keep us on the right track and in unity with Christian tradition.

What I don’t hear enough, in the midst of all the critique, is what the church has done for us lately.  A testimony if you will.  Those of us who spend our time critiquing the church still show up on Sunday and still worship each day.  Our critique hasn’t made us lose our need for the church.  And that is because the church is good.

Sometimes we don’t see the goodness of the local church because it is a slow, beautiful goodness.  At the wedding I was in this past weekend it struck me how over several years so many people within our local church community had been wrapped up in each other’s lives (in a good way).  We have lived life together, worshiped together, gone through the same sacred moments together.

The goodness comes only through the long, slow look.  It is best savored.

I stumbled upon the joyous thought that our local church has been so good during the rehearsal when I watched our friends practice their vows in the same place Sarah and I had done so four and a half years ago. In retrospect we were just a small yet integral couple to the ever increasing life of our local church.  When we look at so many of our friends wedding pictures we all have the same background.  We all have our church’s baptistery behind us, and the communion table whispering to us “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And we have remembered him, all of us, for better or worse. So much good has happened since we joined this community of faith.  The local church, for better or worse, whether richer or poorer, through good times or bad has done its job.  We have held our vows to each other, to be the body of Christ to the world and to one another.

Sure the local community has failed me and other people over the years.  But that critique stems from events here and there and the collective humanity of us all.  The collective, when compounded by time, is a testimony to the beautiful relationships we have all fostered with one another and the sharpening of our spirituality as we proceed through life together.

It happens so slow, this beautiful goodness.  And I delight in the thought that the longer we sit at the table together and love one another through thick and thin we will not be disappointed.