something new

I have been thinking a lot about church. Why we have it, why we go, what we do there. I was raised in a traditional, conservative church and even as a child I was the quiet one who asked the tough questions of the sunday school teachers. Why can't I dance? Didn't Jesus drink wine? Why do all the same people come here? Why is there nobody new?
Truth be told, we wouldn't have known what to do if someone came to church drunk or sporting a black eye. The style back then was for girls to wear short skirts and boys to wear long hair. Frowned upon severely by Mrs. Smith, the barometer for all things immoral within the body of Christ. God bless her longevity she continues to attend that church at the age of 103. She has mellowed...somewhat.
At bible school we had the usual censure placed on us; no holding hands in chapel, curfew (wasn't long before I was washing windows in the dining hall as a penalty for that one), no jeans in the adminstrative/classroom building, there are others.
It is funny then that coming out of that when it came time for me to chose a church to attend as an adult that I would still go with what I had been raised in. Finally an opportunity to express my faith in my own way and I am boxed in by everything I had fought against as a child.
I don't know who it originally was who decided we could only worship with hymns written up to 100 years earlier but there I was perpetuating the myth!
I don't harbor any ill will toward the conventional church structure but now I question 'why' of anything that has to do with the traditions of my faith. I find myself going farther back to the beginnings of the christian faith. How did they do church? What brought them into richer experience of Christ? I am drawn to outdoor worship, solitary places to sit with Him and enjoy His presence. When worshipping as a community I like the idea of coming into an area free of chairs, pews, aisles and even an obvious stage front. To be loosly held to the order of sitting or standing to listen. I want to be able to stand and raise my hands or turn around to kneel and pray should the spirit guide me without everyone looking at me oddly.
There is a new church rising up from the depths of dissatisfaction that my generation has with the constraints of the traditional model of church. There is a desire for community, like that which the early christians experienced,I know that will be part of it. The call to worship in new and experiential ways and the need for missional thinking. To break loose from a building and have a body of believers that can be 'church' in any home, chat room, bar, shelter or park. When I shake loose the shackles there are countless possibilities. The desire in me is to plant that church, be part of that body. Whatever you might call it.
I look forward to experiencing that although I have no wisdom about what it will eventually look like. It is exciting to think that Christ saw it all when He died and rose, to make that possible today. That the vision He had encompassed all the changes that the church would undergo. I wonder if He is ready for something new too.