I John 4:1a; I Corinthians 12:12, 19-20, 27, 29-13:8, 13

A SMALL BEGINNING TO AN IMPORTANT TASK
The history and duration of the church is impressive. Certainly it is today, something that was never intended in the beginning, and especially by Jesus. Jesus knew nothing of the church, and the brief reference of him speaking of the church being built on the confession of Peter (Matthew 16:13-20) is presumed to be a statement added to the text at a much later time.

The church was not started by the disciples after the death of Jesus because they intended to "start a church." The church started in response to their need to find whatever security was possible for each other. Furthermore, the church came about through the need of the disciples to make sense from that which they had experienced together in relation to the friendship, ministry, life, and death of Jesus.

The church has evolved from that very small and functional beginning to what we recognize it to be today. Its impact on the world has been significant. Its impact on the lives of individual human beings exceeds comprehension. If you have been the recipient of any of the many wonderful blessings available through the church, you surely view it as a blessing. If your relationship with the church is such that you are confident in it as a channel through which you can express helpfulness to others, either economically or through other means of nurturing support, you surely view it as a blessing. The church is a wonderful resource from which we receive and through which we are able to share with others.

But there are reasonable questions, which need to be raised, and answered, about the church as an institution. Often it has been and is a wonderful blessing. Sometimes it has been and is a problem to human progress through a spirit of arrogance, mind control, and regressive influence.

The potential of the church to respond to the spiritual needs of human beings continues to be considerable. What the church is, and what it becomes, in response to the meeting of those needs, is the current responsibility of those of us who are a part of the church as an institution. Its future is in the hands of those who are now in the process of determining its value through their observation of work that we do and the example that we are.

THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION
Increasing complexity of human society demands the creation of institutions designed to meet the needs of both individuals and society. Outstanding examples of institutions in contemporary human society include government, education, health care, and the church. Each of these institutions make an important contribution to the welfare of the entire human family and individuals within it. Government provides order. Educational institutions provide an opportunity for learning in ways not otherwise possible. Hospitals and related health care entities provide both preventive and remedial response to the health needs of persons. Each of these institutions responds to specific human needs in a manner not possible if each person or family was their only resource.

The same is true with the church. The church provides a resource of spiritual nurture for human beings in a way that is not otherwise possible. Human society, at the close of the twentieth century, is so complex and interdependent, that the contribution of the church to the spiritual nurture of individuals and society as a whole is very important. Without a healthy spirit, all progress in every other area of human experience and concern is diminished. In fact, without spiritual nurture and growth on both the individual and corporate levels, the human family can become a danger to itself and a threat to its future survival.

But institutions have their own unique characteristics and can easily assume a life of their own. The church is not immune to this specific institutional characteristic.

INSTITUTIONAL DANGERS
The problem with any response to human need when it becomes institutionalized is that there is an inherent danger that the institution becomes an end in and of itself. That is to say that there is a danger for the institution to become so involved in self-propagation that it ceases to function effectively as a response to the need for which it was originally created. This concern is especially evident in government, but it is clearly present in education, health care, and the church as well.

The primary goal of government should be order and security. The primary goal of education should be the provision of the best possible learning opportunities. The primary goal of health care should be precisely what the name implies--the care of health for persons. The primary goal of the church should be the nurture of spirituality in persons of all ages.

A second danger inherent in all institutions is that they become so comfortable in doing the same thing in the same way that they fail to maintain relevancy as the rest of the world changes. That is a danger to which the church is especially susceptible. It is easy for the church to become involved in many good things and, in the busyness, overlook those things, which contribute most to spiritual health.

HUMAN SPIRITUALITY
But what is spirituality? Is it regular participation in certain rituals associated with religion, such as prayer and public worship? While religious rituals and practices may be helpful in nurturing and expressing spirituality, they can also become empty and meaningless exercises. Spirituality includes the recognition that there is that about us human beings which we call spirit. Spirituality involves emotions, but it is not contingent on emotional responses.

Spirituality is related to every other aspect of being human. It is related to that about us, which is physical. It is related to that about us which is intellectual. It is related to that about us which is emotional. Without spirit, human beings would become something other than what we recognize as human.

The spirit has to do with attitude. It has to do with love. It has to do with relationships. It has to do with reverence for our Source. It has to do with respect for one another and the environment, which sustains us. Although spirit is unseen, it has to do with everything about us that is seen and experienced.

When the spirit is not healthy, that about us, which is physical is affected. When the spirit is not healthy, all our relationships are affected. When the spirit is not healthy, our attitudes about self, life, and each other are affected. When the spirit is not healthy, there tends to be an expectation of receiving love without a sense of needing to give it. Both the joy and effort found in satisfying the love needs of others is missing.

The importance of spiritual health is clearly evident. The primary task of the institution of the church should be that of nurturing spiritual health. To the degree that it accomplishes this goal, it is true to its reason for being. To the degree that it fails to accomplish this goal, the reason for its being is diminished.

SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION
Spirituality should not be confused with either religious profession or superstition. The term "religion" commonly implies an institutional relation-ship. There is much about religion that can easily become empty formality. There is much about religion, which can easily become superstition, and there is much about superstition, which can erroneously be interpreted as spiritual or religious.

Both of these dangers are clearly recognized in the Bible. Although it is clear that the Old Testament Jews believed that God had commanded them to observe certain religious rituals and practices, it is just as clear that the eighth century prophets concluded that these rituals and practices had become so empty, meaningless, and misleading, that they were an abomination to God. Some of the New Testament writers became concerned that people, in their zeal to be "spiritual," were going off on harmful tangents. They therefore admonished Christians not to believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God.

There are many examples of church activities in church groups which are believed by that group to indicate the great depth of their spirituality which in fact indicate their level of foolishness. The handling of poisonous snakes, speaking in tongues, the total loss of psychological control resulting in trances, suicidal sect groups, and practices involving the mutilating or sacrificing of the human body are all examples of practices believed to be associated with spirituality. In fact, they clearly indicate a sickness of spirit.

Much superstition, in the name of religion, is associated with the Bible--the use of incense, beads, and elaborate symbols associated with worship are just a few examples. Prayer, or the saying of prayers, also often fits within the realm of superstition. Giving to the church can also fit under the umbrella of superstition when it is done with a belief that God will show special favors to those who give either certain amounts or certain percentages of their income.

SPIRITUAL HEROES
Human beings learn from one another. Human beings depend on one another. Human beings discover examples for their own expression of life in one another. All of this is related to what we often speak of as our need for heroes. A wide variety of religions have their heroes. Buddhists have Buddha, Jews have Moses and King David, Muslims have Mohammed, and Christians have Jesus. From these religious heroes, persons both learn about what it means to be spiritual in relation to that specific religion and how to nurture their spirituality.

Jesus can be and ought to be a wonderful hero, to all professing Christians, both young and adult.

The message is clear that both individuals and the entire human family is in need of what Jesus had to offer. In relation to the broad spectrum of humanity, the principles espoused by Jesus are more important than the source. We really don't care whether the principles come from Moses, King David, Mohammed, Buddha, or some other respectable source. For those of us in the Christian tradition, however, it is important to learn all we can, and emulate to the best of our ability, the spirit of Jesus which was basic to the belief system he taught and the example of how he expressed his life.

BELIEVING "RIGHT" ABOUT JESUS
If Jesus is to be a worthy hero whose memory can assist persons in experiencing and expressing their lives in the best possible manner, that which is believed about Jesus is extremely important. In other words, it is important to "believe right."

Believing right was fundamental to, and nurturing of, a sense of personal security in the life of Jesus. Everything experienced and expressed by Jesus had rootage in what he believed about God, about himself, and about all other members of the human family. If Jesus is to be the Christian hero, then it is at this point that one's expression and experience of life should begin. What is believed about God, about oneself, and about others, is more than "just" important. It is absolutely basic to what we are about as persons, as a church, and ideally as a human family.

"Believing right" is not static. That is to say it is not an intellectual assent to some verbalized belief, which stops with rhetoric. It is not a summit toward which we climb and, after reaching, sit down and enjoy the view. Believing right has to do with how we express our lives. Believing right has to do with every good thing we human beings are capable of doing. The absence of believing right is related to every bad thing of which human beings are capable.

Fundamental for the Christian is what is believed about Jesus. The influence of the Christian religion for good has been impressive, both historically and contemporarily. There have been those lapses, however, when the history of Christian influence has not been such that we can take pride in it. There exists those situations today when it is not as good as it ought to be. Among our tasks as disciples of Jesus is that of making the influence, which we have on each other as positive as possible. Our task as a corporate group, i.e. as the church, is to make an impact on the world, which is just as positive as possible. All of this is closely related to what is believed about Jesus.

In general, both Judaism and the early church "screwed up" in how they finally defined who Jesus was and "what he was about." The Jews in general screwed up by not giving him enough attention. In not hearing the heart of his message, which is basically "love over law" with the same goals of behavior in mind, they missed an important element, which might have become central to their religious teachings. "Obey the law from love of God, not out of fear of consequences."

The early church erred in establishing a theology about Jesus, which was consider-ably different from how Jesus viewed himself. This theology provided an explanation for the crucifixion but, in doing that, claimed something for Jesus that he did not claim for himself.

The early church, as per the New Testament, was dominated by "after death" and "other world" thinking. This was a natural response to a life "in the here and now" that was made absolutely tenuous and miserable by those who sought to bring an early death to Christianity. This "after death" and "other world" thinking, however, was not the dominant theme of the message of Jesus. The dominant theme of Jesus had to do with the human relationship with God, with each other, and human behavior.

The early Christians, on the other hand, embraced the idea that Jesus was God in human flesh and therefore ought to be received by the Jews as Messiah. Jesus affirmed his intention to fulfill the hope of Messiahship on the spiritual level, but this was not the central theme of his life and message. The Jews held that Jesus didn't fit the criteria for Messiah and so refused to give Jesus and his message the kind of attention it deserved.

In brief, the Christians credited Jesus with being more than he saw himself as being, while the Jews did not give him the credit that he was due.

The huge difference between what the early church taught about Jesus and that which most Jews believed about Jesus is unfortunate. Jesus did not intend to start a new religion. His desire and intent was to make Judaism all that it was capable of being, and to nudge it from an overemphasis on legalism to a humane emphasis of doing good from the motivation of love rather than fear. The failure of the early church to believe about Jesus what he believed about himself is just as unfortunate as his rejection by Judaism.

THE GREAT DEBATE--CONFLICTING THEOLOGIES
There has been, from the earliest days of the church, a debate within the church as to who Jesus was and how he accomplished what he did. This debate centers around two distinct interpretations. One approach emphasizes Jesus as one who did something to make us all right in the sight of our Creator. This "at-one-ment" is affirmed by "faith" and is something spoken of as the theory of atonement. The primary focus of religious life is thus placed on him as a mystical intercessor in whom we must believe if the intercession is to be effective for us personally. The phrase often heard in contemporary Christian rhetoric referring to this religious experience is "born again believer." Belief in Jesus as one's intercessor and personal sacrifice is believed to result in a new beginning, thus the phrase "born again believer." Sometimes the phrase "born again Christian" is used and thus tends to communicate a level of spirituality which is a step above that experienced by persons who do not embrace the "atonement" theological point of view, or who, for whatever reason, do not profess to be "born again."

The other approach emphasizes the behavioral side of what Jesus taught. This approach indicates that Jesus had a relationship with God, which all persons can also have. It emphasizes personal responsibility in expressing life in a spirit of love for all other human beings. It emphasizes the idea that we have access to the same spirit of God to which Jesus had access. In other words, instead of "Jesus doing for us," he taught about a relationship with God that we can have and demonstrated how the fruit of that relationship should be expressed in daily life.

A fundamental responsibility of the church is to help us "believe right." This "believing right" includes what we believe about Jesus as well as associated beliefs related to an every day expression of life. The "Christian life" is informed, inspired, and empowered by the same Spirit of God, which informed, inspired, and empowered Jesus.

THE CHURCH A SOURCE OF TENSION
There is a natural tension within the church between maintaining the institution, protecting tradition, and nurturing a religious belief system that is harmonious with present day knowledge. Contemporary knowledge of "how things are" is a wonderful resource to teach us more about what God is about and how God works in our present age.

Among the reasons why Jesus was crucified is that he challenged the status quo of his day and society. Had he not done this in the face of deadly opposition, Christianity would never have been born, much less made the positive contributions to the world from which we benefit. Established religion of his day feared that he might change the status quo. The human tendency to fear and oppose change is no less today than it was then, especially in the realm of religious belief and expression.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
How can the church help persons grow in spirituality in a manner that is harmonious with the world of our day? First, the church can help us avoid the religious schizophrenia syndrome. This is the experience of feeling compelled to believe something taught by the authority of the church when, in fact, it is contrary to both common sense and contemporary knowledge. In the same sense that the belief system of two thousand years ago was concurrent with the general world view of that day, there is no reason why a religious belief system should not be concurrent with the general world view of our day.

Second, the church should view itself, and be viewed by each of us, not as an "end" in and of itself, but as resource for the kind of mental stimulation and spiritual nourishment, which encourages growth in those within the church which is then expressed outside the church.

The church should not feel the need, for example, to become involved as a political action group. If members have the best interests of other human beings in mind, and are guided by principles which they believe to be harmonious with the "will and ways" of God, their votes at the same polls at which their neighbors vote will take care of societal needs.

There is a sense in which the church should be to spiritual growth what the school is to education. The school is not responsible for all learning. It is essential, however, for one to learn how best to learn and how to discover the best sources of learning. Much is learned in school, but nothing is more important than learning "how to learn." The church is not responsible for our spirituality. It should, however, be a resource for our spiritual growth.

Third, the church should help us "check out" the spirits to see if indeed they are from God. Everything that wears the cloak of religion is not in the best interest of human health or God's work. Much that insists on a presence of the umbrella of religion is an embarrassment to religion in general and to the church specifically. In fact, there is too much that carries the banner of "religion" which is, in fact, dangerous to human health and to the welfare of God's human children!

Fourth, the church occasionally gives evidence of being confused as to what its responsibility really is. Should its primary goal be that of entertainment? Much that is called worship today would fit just as neatly under the tent of entertainment. This applies both to television and public worship in local churches. Entertainment is pleasant, but that didn't seem to be the primary goal of Jesus.

Should the goal of the church be political power? Although there were those who feared Jesus might turn in this direction, he did not. The role of institutional religion in American politics today is both regrettable and frightening. A religious fanatic as President, for example, might present challenges to the welfare of our nation that would far exceed the challenges presented by any President to date.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER!
The church can be the greatest possible blessing, both to God and to God's human children, if its focus is on the spiritual needs of human beings. We need to be taught to "believe right," in relation to all other aspects of our lives. We need the encouragement and support of one another in everything that is good and positive. We need the sanctuary of a loving environment where positive accomplishment is praised and falling short is forgiven; where prevention of negative human behavior is a priority; where there is more interest in remedial reconstruction than in punishment; and where hope for better things in the future is a constant source of strength and motivation.

The church is now, and will be in the future, just what you and I make it. As is true with all human institutions, we do well to focus on diminishing the ways in which it is a problem and amplifying the ways in which it is a blessing.

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