Lone Rangers
By Jeff Tomson

Jeff Tomson is pastor at Living Faith Church of the Brethren.

We all know people who make the claim that they don't have to be in church on Sunday or be a part of an organized body of believers to be a Christian. In fact you may be one of those people yourself. It would seem that this group of people now has an advocate in George Barna. Recently he published a book that speaks of a group of people that are "more interested in being the Church than in going to church."

At first glance the local congregations and its members need to be less upset with that statement and more reflective about our own behavior. The church can be a wonderful community and place, but it can also be a source of rejection, pain, and pettiness. We need to understand that statements like this one show our deficiencies. In the past, I too have longed to be the church rather than to go to church.

I recently spoke to Dr. Bob Whitesel about his upcoming book that looks at 20 of the fastest growing congregations in the U.S. and found out that 19 of them made their membership requirements more stringent before they began to grow. If that is true then the revolution that Barna speaks of is not a cry for fewer restrictions, but a backlash against observed problems in the church. This is an indictment of what we are doing wrong.

However, it is important to understand that in spite of problems, we are still called to fellowship and worship in community. My faith tradition places great emphasis on community, sometimes too much because we are sometimes unwilling to hold people accountable to the gospel as we should. Biblically we see a gathering of believers throughout the New Testament. Romans 1:12 and Ephesians 3:10 teach us that the church is for encouraging one another in our faith and to make known the wisdom of God. There is power in community. It is the place of refuge and refreshment for the Christian. However, I am afraid that we have Americanized Christianity and forgot that the Bible speaks to the collective "us" in community.

I encourage you this week to celebrate and relish your local church home and the fellowship that it offers. If you are not attending a congregation on a regular basis then I plead for you to start praying and looking for one. Christ was not a "Lone Ranger," He prayed that the disciples would not be, and are not to be either.