our modest proposal to change the world is a verb change. we believe that the wrong verb is at the heart of what has gone wrong with American Christianity.  it's the word "go" that is bugging us.   for example, when attempting to ferret out spiritual beliefs, it is natural to ask "where do you GO to church?"   think for just a moment how many times you have asked others that question or how often you've been asked it by others.  It seems perfectly normal, fairly benign, so what is the problem?

let's apply the sentence structure to another example:

"where do you GO to family?"

sounds silly, doesn't it? when you emphasize a location. the idea of "going to church" has so permeated our minds that if we don't go to church, we feel actually guilty. imagine the following scenario, you are with a group of friends sharing life at the deepest levels enjoying a meal and conversation together,  when suddenly you realize that "church starts" (another lame diatribe for another time) in a half hour. in a panic you rush out the door, hoping to make it by the first chord. to us, that seems like a person with cancer rushing out of the hospital to get a vitamin. 

we recently interviewed a new person who had stopped by the refuge for the first few times and asked why they came.  we probed in as many ways as possible, but they did not give one traditional answer, the kinds we are used to hearing when people speak about what "church they go to."   not one of these answers mentioned that we had great teaching or music, kids service or anything about the program.  the reason they came is that they needed a family, a place where they could find some love.  we found this very interesting because we know how many millions of dollars are spent in the christian church market bumping up the things people associate with "church" when the one resource that most people really want deep down happens to be free.   

we never want the refuge to be a place people "go to."  we want the refuge to be a community that people "belong to."  that was how it was for the early Christ followers--the "church" was just a crazy rag tag group of people who had been touched by Jesus' spirit and were wanting to live their lives differently.  they gathered together, yes, but it wasn't about a specific location at a certain time for a predictable service.  it was about sharing lives, resources, gaining encouragement from God's word & the testimonies of what He was doing in each other's lives.  it was about "living the gospel."  this means feeding the poor, loving the unlovely, caring for the least of these, recognizing our need for God, becoming less self-centered & turning away from the ways of the world that tell us that power & money means we're valuable. 

if we stop going "to church", maybe we have chance of "being the church". . .