The grief of realizing that Jesus isn’t where you’ve been seeking him — whew, I remember that awful sense of disorientation. Thank you for sharing the quotes from Invisible Jesus. Those are many of the questions I’ve been asking … it’s bumped to the top of my list now!
I’m glad that McKnight and Phillips have had their own qualifying experiences to write this book. The protectiveness I feel for those who have been rejected by the symbiotic organisations they belonged to is almost too much to read in print. The vast majority of us are no longer in those systems and so it’s difficult to see two people write from within their respective systems, though I know they are striving for Jesus to be seen in their lives and in their organisations. I fear that their involvement, even at the leadership level renders them merely benevolent and doesn’t actually answer the malevolence that is allowed to take place by the very nature of our organisation and practice.
While deconstruction is a deeply private and individual occurrence, if all of our attention is drawn to the individual we fail them by thinking that it is only about the individual and that there is very little organisationally speaking that must be deconstructed and returned to a more primitive state of intersoul connectivity rather than organisational unity.
Yes, I understand your point, Daniel. I've seen Scot walk away at personal cost. I would say that the book is a plea for those within the church to "put on the shoes" of those harmed by her and realize that maybe the deconstructing aren't the ones most disillusioned. They write a lot about the systems we find ourselves in, or don't realize that we are serving.
I feel an affinity with you because you see many of the things that see.
I particularly like this part of your comment:
“I fear that their involvement, even at the leadership level renders them merely benevolent and doesn’t actually answer the malevolence that is allowed to take place by the very nature of our organisation and practice.”
While Jesus is in the prisons, the homeless shelters, the domestic abuse shelters, and the hospitals, psychopaths and Satan’s minions are in those places too.
Learning to discern and navigate through this is very difficult, and in my observation most professing Christians are naive about this. They may have a theoretical understanding, but they seldom have lived experience and neurological capacity to respond wisely to the machinations of the evildoers.
Thank you Aimee. I long for a 20/20 vision of who Jesus is and how He can be clearly seen through my life and relationships. At age 74 and having been a Pastor for over 40 years I’m just tired of the lack of Christ like love and following His ways in the “church”. It just plain sucks.
I would love to spend a day chatting you! You are ahead of me in the process I think but you are able to articulate what I have been struggling to make sense of. Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences, it is impactful for me and I’m sure many others!
This post hits too close to home for me, so I’ll refrain from saying much other than:
1) I really enjoy Scot’s writing so thanks for highlighting this book
2) I love your sentence “We watched pastors and elders wearing their authority like costumes, parading around as if they were lawyers, debating the Book of Church Order …” — paints such a vivid and sad picture
Thanks again Aimee for giving voice to what many of us feel!
What a hurtful, disheartening situation, Aimee. I trust you've found another fellowship with God-loving, truth-seeking believers. If a church moves away from the pursuits of knowing God, studying scripture, praying continually, serving one another, and giving generously of time and resources for others, they become more country club than church. Some people gather, spend an hour ("No more than that, Pastor! Keep your sermon short, please. Whatever needs to be said can surely be presented in 20 minutes!"), and consider their spiritual obligation fulfilled for the week. They miss out on all the blessings of true fellowship with God and with passionate believers.
Jesus can be so elusive. He’s all the time leaving the building, moving the X on the map. I’ve been to church services which say or sing ‘Jesus’ every third word, and still come away feeling that he wasn’t there. I’ve also been in faith-based soup kitchens and homeless shelters where he was likewise absent. It pisses me off sometimes, how deliberate and unexpected it is when I do find him, like I have to have this spiritual hyper-vigilance, looking for him under rocks and behind curtains. But then he shows up someplace in someone and all is forgiven and we carry on so naturally, like only old friends can.
The answer to where Jesus is in our congregations is: He is truly lost, not in all, granted, but in far too many. We have reverted to everything Paul and Peter cautioned us to avoid in regard to how to treat each other and being prideful.. Scripture has been mistranslated, misinterpreted and misapplied where women are concerned. Arrogance, pride and superiority are over the top and the secular world is way to much a part of our congregation and leadership decisions.
John 17:6-26 and Ephesians 4. John is Jesus’ prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane for His apostles, and His current and future believers to be in unity. Ephesians speaks to the unity between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and us. John 14:19-20 summarizes both: “After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you.” Unity.
Sadly, after thousands of years we remain as splintered as the NT Church was. If we pay close attention to the Letters (Epistles) and Pastorial Letters, if we research the societal, governmental, historical, cultural environment of the times we become aware of the back story for each document. And that is where the lessons for today are. False teachers, inaccurate teaching, idolization, lack of respect, pride, arrogance, jealousy, within the congregation and outside it but impacting it. Add to all that the Jewish culture, Roman culture, Greco-Roman (Hellenistic) culture, and pagan culture, a part of all the new converts to what we call Christianity today. Honestly, does any of this sound any different than now? The names of the convert groups are different but the dynamics are not.
How could we have progressed this far intellectually but still be so lost spiritually? What is so hard about hearing what Jesus tells us, we are all equal in His eyes, in our creation- there is no superiority!
I wonder if our terminology is also at fault. When we watered down the word “Church” to signify the brick and mortar we go to on Sunday instead of keeping it pure as The Body of Christ, His Bride we dishonored it. We do not go to “church” on Sunday we go to worship, with a congregation that is The Church Body. We worship Our Father, we learn to exemplify Jesus, we should be leaving with the confidence of the Holy Spirit to guide us through the week. But for too many of us we leave with none of that but a whole lot of secular.
In my limited experience here is how I have seen people stay in The Church after leaving the brick and mortar: home gatherings, study groups, prayer groups. We recognize the need to be in community to stay in the Word, to be held accountable, to be loved, cared for, to experience grace and compassion, to share our faith and not loose faith because of poor leadership or put ourselves in danger of spiritual warfare. And yet, that may make us ineligible to attend some colleges and be in leadership positions in some parachurches. So we are denied in depth learning and the utilization of our gifts. Where in the Bible does it say you must belong to a brick and mortar and attend every Sunday? It doesn’t it says to be in community and keep the Sabbath holy.
The grief of realizing that Jesus isn’t where you’ve been seeking him — whew, I remember that awful sense of disorientation. Thank you for sharing the quotes from Invisible Jesus. Those are many of the questions I’ve been asking … it’s bumped to the top of my list now!
Too much church, not enough Jesus.
That’s the realization I came to that led me to leave a congregation I’d been part of a long time.
Thank you so much for this reflection, Aimee. Your word about Faces takes our whole book straight to Jesus. Bless you.
I’m glad that McKnight and Phillips have had their own qualifying experiences to write this book. The protectiveness I feel for those who have been rejected by the symbiotic organisations they belonged to is almost too much to read in print. The vast majority of us are no longer in those systems and so it’s difficult to see two people write from within their respective systems, though I know they are striving for Jesus to be seen in their lives and in their organisations. I fear that their involvement, even at the leadership level renders them merely benevolent and doesn’t actually answer the malevolence that is allowed to take place by the very nature of our organisation and practice.
While deconstruction is a deeply private and individual occurrence, if all of our attention is drawn to the individual we fail them by thinking that it is only about the individual and that there is very little organisationally speaking that must be deconstructed and returned to a more primitive state of intersoul connectivity rather than organisational unity.
Yes, I understand your point, Daniel. I've seen Scot walk away at personal cost. I would say that the book is a plea for those within the church to "put on the shoes" of those harmed by her and realize that maybe the deconstructing aren't the ones most disillusioned. They write a lot about the systems we find ourselves in, or don't realize that we are serving.
Daniel, thank you!
I feel an affinity with you because you see many of the things that see.
I particularly like this part of your comment:
“I fear that their involvement, even at the leadership level renders them merely benevolent and doesn’t actually answer the malevolence that is allowed to take place by the very nature of our organisation and practice.”
Jesus is in the prisons, in the hospitals, in the homeless shelters . . . just where He said He’d be.
Indeed!
This. Excellent point, friend.
While Jesus is in the prisons, the homeless shelters, the domestic abuse shelters, and the hospitals, psychopaths and Satan’s minions are in those places too.
Learning to discern and navigate through this is very difficult, and in my observation most professing Christians are naive about this. They may have a theoretical understanding, but they seldom have lived experience and neurological capacity to respond wisely to the machinations of the evildoers.
Good point. Thank you for making it.
"Wise as serpents and gentle as doves," comes to mind.
Thank you Aimee. I long for a 20/20 vision of who Jesus is and how He can be clearly seen through my life and relationships. At age 74 and having been a Pastor for over 40 years I’m just tired of the lack of Christ like love and following His ways in the “church”. It just plain sucks.
I would love to spend a day chatting you! You are ahead of me in the process I think but you are able to articulate what I have been struggling to make sense of. Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences, it is impactful for me and I’m sure many others!
I wish I could say I have no idea what you're talking about with this 'invisible Jesus' stuff. But alas...
There's a rawness to your writing that I cannot ignore. Thanks, as always, Amy for putting my feelings and experiences into words.
This post hits too close to home for me, so I’ll refrain from saying much other than:
1) I really enjoy Scot’s writing so thanks for highlighting this book
2) I love your sentence “We watched pastors and elders wearing their authority like costumes, parading around as if they were lawyers, debating the Book of Church Order …” — paints such a vivid and sad picture
Thanks again Aimee for giving voice to what many of us feel!
The questions we really need to be asking!! Makes all the difference. Thanks Aimee
What a hurtful, disheartening situation, Aimee. I trust you've found another fellowship with God-loving, truth-seeking believers. If a church moves away from the pursuits of knowing God, studying scripture, praying continually, serving one another, and giving generously of time and resources for others, they become more country club than church. Some people gather, spend an hour ("No more than that, Pastor! Keep your sermon short, please. Whatever needs to be said can surely be presented in 20 minutes!"), and consider their spiritual obligation fulfilled for the week. They miss out on all the blessings of true fellowship with God and with passionate believers.
Jesus can be so elusive. He’s all the time leaving the building, moving the X on the map. I’ve been to church services which say or sing ‘Jesus’ every third word, and still come away feeling that he wasn’t there. I’ve also been in faith-based soup kitchens and homeless shelters where he was likewise absent. It pisses me off sometimes, how deliberate and unexpected it is when I do find him, like I have to have this spiritual hyper-vigilance, looking for him under rocks and behind curtains. But then he shows up someplace in someone and all is forgiven and we carry on so naturally, like only old friends can.
You are an amazing gift to the Body of Christ Aimee. Thank you!
So good. I relate to much of what you expressed here. Thank you for sharing. Blessings!
The answer to where Jesus is in our congregations is: He is truly lost, not in all, granted, but in far too many. We have reverted to everything Paul and Peter cautioned us to avoid in regard to how to treat each other and being prideful.. Scripture has been mistranslated, misinterpreted and misapplied where women are concerned. Arrogance, pride and superiority are over the top and the secular world is way to much a part of our congregation and leadership decisions.
John 17:6-26 and Ephesians 4. John is Jesus’ prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane for His apostles, and His current and future believers to be in unity. Ephesians speaks to the unity between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and us. John 14:19-20 summarizes both: “After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you.” Unity.
Sadly, after thousands of years we remain as splintered as the NT Church was. If we pay close attention to the Letters (Epistles) and Pastorial Letters, if we research the societal, governmental, historical, cultural environment of the times we become aware of the back story for each document. And that is where the lessons for today are. False teachers, inaccurate teaching, idolization, lack of respect, pride, arrogance, jealousy, within the congregation and outside it but impacting it. Add to all that the Jewish culture, Roman culture, Greco-Roman (Hellenistic) culture, and pagan culture, a part of all the new converts to what we call Christianity today. Honestly, does any of this sound any different than now? The names of the convert groups are different but the dynamics are not.
How could we have progressed this far intellectually but still be so lost spiritually? What is so hard about hearing what Jesus tells us, we are all equal in His eyes, in our creation- there is no superiority!
I wonder if our terminology is also at fault. When we watered down the word “Church” to signify the brick and mortar we go to on Sunday instead of keeping it pure as The Body of Christ, His Bride we dishonored it. We do not go to “church” on Sunday we go to worship, with a congregation that is The Church Body. We worship Our Father, we learn to exemplify Jesus, we should be leaving with the confidence of the Holy Spirit to guide us through the week. But for too many of us we leave with none of that but a whole lot of secular.
In my limited experience here is how I have seen people stay in The Church after leaving the brick and mortar: home gatherings, study groups, prayer groups. We recognize the need to be in community to stay in the Word, to be held accountable, to be loved, cared for, to experience grace and compassion, to share our faith and not loose faith because of poor leadership or put ourselves in danger of spiritual warfare. And yet, that may make us ineligible to attend some colleges and be in leadership positions in some parachurches. So we are denied in depth learning and the utilization of our gifts. Where in the Bible does it say you must belong to a brick and mortar and attend every Sunday? It doesn’t it says to be in community and keep the Sabbath holy.
We really are dependent on the Holy Spirit to see and follow Christ.
William Tyndale translated ‘ecclesia’ as ‘congregation’ rather than ‘church’.
Read about that here:
https://newmatthewbible.org/ecclesia.pdf