What does the church need to be saved from?  Well itself of course.  McLaren writes that the church saves lives, but not exactly in a way that we hope for.  McLaren Says, “Simple churches save people from complexity, and complex churches save people from simplicity.  Political churches save people from an overly personal religiosity, and personal churches save people from overly politicized religiosity.  Exciting churches save people from boredom, and quiet churches save people from hoopla and hype.” (162) This is the viscous cycle that churchgoers are faced with.

Earlier in McLaren’s book he describes Orthopraxy to be, “A deep orientation or attitude or feelings of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control blossom and bear fruit” (29) He says it is an inward transformation that requires community and an expanding network.  What better place to find practice than in the church.  Then what is the purpose of the church?  McLaren says it is simple, “the church exists to form Christ like people, and people of Christ like love.  It exists to save them from the great danger of wasting their lives, becoming something less than and other than they were intended to be, gaining the world but losing their souls.” (164)

The issue with the church is that churches are broken, fragmented, messed up, and all over the place.  There are churches to make you feel a certain way, there are churches that have hurt people, and filled with controversy.  What McLaren says is interesting, he doesn’t deny it, but calls for churches to humble themselves and acknowledge the issues of the church.  To acknowledge this brokenness, and not runaway from it, point fingers, or minimize the issues is to come to the realization that the church is a New Testament church. (165) McLaren believes that it starts with rethinking the core mission of the church, and it begins with the leaders of the church. (164)

McLaren uses references from 1 Corinthians interpreting Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth to remind the church that the way is love.  This is where McLaren draws his focus, and mission of where the church should be.  Paul writes to the Corinthians telling them, “let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor 16:13).  This is the same mandate that McLaren writes to the church today, let everything you do be done in love.  McLaren says that the church should be training ground for love.  He uses the reference to a Jesus dojo to represent the training ground for love in our church.  I just Karate Kid and I love the reference.  If pastors could be like Mr. Miyagi in the way they train people in the church by way of love that would be awesome.

So what now?  The church is to become a school of love, how?  What would our churches look like?  McLaren says, “make forming Christlike people, and people who live in the way of love, the way of peacemaking, the way of the Kingdom of God the way of Jesus the goal of the church, everything else is secondary” (170).  I believe McLaren is saying if we are serious about a new kind of church being done in the way of love as Paul writes then we need to be serious in the way we go about it.  It has to be the ethos of the church.  Make it the main goal of the church that everything else is formed around.  The liturgy, lectionaries, music, and programs all of it centered around the goal of being a church that is a school of love forming Christlike people.  McLaren says that this new paradigm for the church recognizes the church for what it is truly meant to be and that is, “a space in which human beings, formed in Christlike love, cooperation with the Spirit and one another to express that love in word and deed, art and action” (171).

My thoughts about the question of the church, and what I’ve read so far on McLaren’s book is simple.  I am hopeful for the future of the church.  It is interesting to me that McLaren is calling for churches to be a training ground for love, a school of love something so simple yet why is that he has to remind the church of such things?  They have read 1 Corinthians; do they not see the same things?  Well, the only reference I can draw is from my own church experiences, and where I see churches at times are in maintenance modes.  Churches have been trying to maintain the congregation, and keep people in the church.

My thoughts about the question of the church, and what I’ve read so far on McLaren’s book is simple.  I am hopeful for the future of the church.  It is interesting to me that McLaren is calling for churches to be a training ground for love, a school of love something so simple yet why is that he has to remind the church of such things?  They have read 1 Corinthians; do they not see the same things?  Well, the only reference I can draw is from my own church experiences, and where I see churches at times are in maintenance modes.  Churches have been trying to maintain the congregation, and keep people in the church.  The church needs to be saved from itself.  I believe it starts with people who are willing to be agents of transformation, to be courageous to make a stand.  Leaders who want to change the patterns of the church, and call for a paradigm shift in our mission, and practices of the church.

I want to be an agent of change, but does the rest of the church want to follow?

Jeff writes that Yahoo, and AOL are former king of the online hill, and they operate under old rules.  It’s companies like Google that brings new rules, new platforms, and network that changes everything.  The first thought that came to my mind was Yahoo, AOL equals United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, or any other mainline denominational church.  They are dinosaurs that claim new tag lines, or mission statements for the 21st Century, but operate by the same old rules that makes the church no longer relevant.  There are new ministries and churches out there making new rules, and sets to reach people where they are, and goes out to people where they are not just say they do.

I’m not saying that Google, Jeff Jarvis , or this book has all the answers to life and the church, but there is good stuff here to really help leaders in the church to think differently about Faith, the local church, and the Kingdom of God in our culture today.

To Jeff Jarvis,  love the book so far.  Peace!!