Video Game Church, Part 4

This is a long article. You might want to set aside some time to think about it or print it off and read it later. Please don't stop half-way through and not return to it. If it is helpful, feel free to share it with others in your church - either by referring them to this blog or by printing the articles off and handing them out. There is no copyright on any of this - use it as you see fit. And may God bless you as you seek to work in His kingdom today.
Steve

So what does a church look like when it is immersed? As strange as it may seem, I have actually seen glimpses of an immersed church. Perhaps we can use a glimpse to help inform our vision of what an immersed church looks like.
The immersed church I am envisioning is a small group on a mission trip to Mexico. The purpose of the trip is to work on building a church building. Each person has dedicated a week of their life to go on this trip. Each person has paid their own way to go on this trip. Each person knows going in that the week will be a physically demanding week – a week that they will use skills that they do not possess on the van ride into Mexico. But each person is willing.
On Monday morning, the job for the week is laid out. By the end of the week, there is a point that this group must reach so that the following week another group can continue building from that point and work on the next phase of the building. The person who has the master plan in mind helps the leaders of the mission team see what all needs to be done during that week. From that point on, everyone has the same objective in mind – to complete the task for that week. But even though the objective is the same, each person begins to take on different jobs and tasks to make sure that the objective is complete.
During the course of the week there will be difficulties that arise – obstacles that must be overcome in order to complete the objective. But in my experience, these difficulties do not destroy the team as long as the entire team is motivated to accomplish the same task. Instead, the team will grow extremely close during that week. The hard work and reliance upon one another draws them closer to each other. They learn to share the work load. They learn that there are moments when they will be strong when others are weak, and they learn to lend a hand. They also learn that there are times when they are weak and have to accept someone else’s hand to help them with their task. Together they will doubt whether they will be able to accomplish all that they are called on to do that week. But together they will work together until that task is accomplished and they are successful.
During that week, they will also share in true worship experiences. They will sing songs together each evening. They will pray together each evening. They will think about scriptures together each evening. And during these times they will draw closer and closer to God as they learn to depend upon Him each day for the strength to do the things they have gone to Mexico to do.
The mission team is an immersed church. They are completely immersed in what they are asked to do for one week. They will work as long and as hard as they need to in order to accomplish that task. Obstacles and difficulties are overcome as they work together to solve problems. And worship becomes a relational experience. This has been my experience when I have been on mission trips.
So if this is a glimpse of an immersed church, how can we make this normative rather than anecdotal? How can we make our own congregations immersed bodies who operate in this manner rather than stagnant organizations that meet once or twice a week? Here are some of my conclusions based on my experiences…
1. Commitment from each member.
To go back to the image of kids playing video games – I’ve noticed that the kids who aren’t actively playing the game aren’t immersed in it like the ones with their hands on the controllers. For a church to completely immersed in the work of being the church, each member must have their hands on the controllers – they must be active and committed to the vision of that congregation.
2. Purpose/Mission.
What is the mission of your congregation? Do you know? Do you have a role that you are seeking to fill in your community? If not, your congregation may be struggling to find an identity. The members of your congregation might seem less committed than you think they should. It is hard to commit to a vague notion. Churches (and probably this would be the task of the leadership of the congregation) must do the hard work of looking in scripture to find what churches are supposed to be. Then they must do the hard work of looking in their community and seeing what the community needs. And then that church must do the hard work of beginning to meet the real needs of the people in that community.
3. Biblical unity.
Here’s the hard reality – God didn’t establish one mold for all Christians to be poured into. He didn’t give you the same talents he gave me. If our job in Mexico was to level a large section of land so that we could pour a four inch concrete floor with columns for the walls, and everyone decided that our job was to tie rebar – we could not accomplish our task for the week. For some reason that makes sense when we talk about building a building, but it seems like a foreign language when we try to apply that to the church. We tend to have in mind that we must all think and act alike. For a church to truly be immersed in the things we need to be immersed in, we must each learn to be the part of the body that God has called us to be. (I Corinthians 12)
4. Face difficulties and obstacles together.
Too often, whether in work settings or churches or homes, difficulties and obstacles become a reason to become angry with someone else rather than an opportunity to work together to become stronger. My focus in this article is the church, so I am mainly thinking about how the church reacts when something happens that some members do not like. It is time that we mature to the point that we can share our concerns with one another without judging. And as we share or learn of concerns, we must discipline ourselves to commit ourselves to working with the rest of the congregation to find a solution. It is only when the entire body works together to overcome an obstacle that the entire body can overcome an obstacle. If we are not all working together some will hurdle the obstacle while others get stuck. When that happens we are no longer a unified body.
5. Learn how to be strong.
Being strong does not mean dominating. It means that a person has the ability to help someone else who is weak at the moment. Being strong is not a permanent condition or a universal condition. I am strong some times while not strong at other times. I am strong in some areas, but not in others. We need to learn to recognize our strengths and use them to benefit others.
6. Learn how to be weak.
Being weak does not mean that we are less than the strong. It merely means that we need some help to face the situations we are in. But being weak is so offensive to us that we would rather suffer for weeks or months or years rather than accept the help that is offered by someone else. We need to learn that its OK to lean on someone else for a time. And during that time we need to learn how to serve someone else – so that when we are strong, we can assist someone who is weak. Some loads are too heavy to lift by ourselves. If we are stubborn and insist on lifting it ourselves, we will only injure ourselves…and then the load will fall on even more people to lift.
7. Sacrifice our own desires in order to meet the objective.
On a mission trip where we work to build a church building, each person has a desire during the day to return to the hotel. Sitting in an air conditioned room or relaxing in a pool is much more desirable than hauling off more debris or hauling a dozen more mixer loads of cement in five gallon buckets. But if the job is to be done – the desires must be sacrificed. We live in a world that says our desires are more important than the objective. It is time to turn that around.
8. Worship in Spirit and Truth.
Worshiping in Spirit and Truth is more than getting the acts right. It is the worship of the heart whose sole desire is to praise God. I have often found that the act of worship is most pleasing when I have immersed myself in the work God has placed before me. Showing up at a building to sing a few songs and endure a message is rarely worship if the way we live our lives the six days prior to that hour reflect very little about the relationship we claim to have with God. Tex Williams once said, “If you want to improve your sex life, you need to improve the other twenty-three and a half hours of the day. If you want to improve your Sunday worship, you need to improve the other six days of worship.”
9. Learn to rely on God for strength to accomplish our tasks.
This is a hard lesson to learn. We often pray for God to work and then expend all of our energy trying to show him how he needs to work. We must practice listening to the Spirit and feeling the urgings of the Spirit as he guides us. We must realize that “success” is up to God, and that it is our job to do the good deeds that he has prepared for us to do (lessons from Nehemiah 2 and Ephesians 2). How much time do churches spend worrying? And how much time do they spend walking in the faith and assurance that God is working?
10.
I really should have a tenth point here so that this could be some sort of top ten list. So feel free to add a point and send it to me. But to have a complete list might give us the sense that we could accomplish all of this if we follow a certain pattern of steps. This is not the case. All of this is said to illustrate the simple point that if we will learn to live like the Bible calls us to live we will be effective and productive in the work God has called us to do.

Life as I know it is a lot like a mission trip. And the trip will only be successful when the whole church realizes that we have a mission to do and each member of that church begins to work toward that goal.