What Church Really Means

We're in a strange season. And my heart is doing its best to process it.

For seven years, we've belonged to the same church – the one the Holy Spirit led us to.

And it's the same church the Holy Spirit is asking us to walk away from.

I started to notice His nudging two years ago, gentle pokes in my gut forcing me to look up and around.

I had gone from cheerfully serving and loving to becoming the twenty percent of that 80/20 rule, where only a small portion of the body within a church's membership is serving and tithing.

But, to be fair, I have the kind of Type A personality that can keep my head down and moving forward. So what was it really God was saying to me?

I think it's something He's concerned about in many Western churches. We become a more corporate structure seeking to "keep up with the Joneses" – the bigger, better, more prosperous churches that seem to have people busting out the windows.

But when I read Scripture, I see two things:

• The crowds who liked the message until they didn't.
• The true believers who followed our Lord into death.

And that latter group? There aren't as many included, especially not enough to bring the house down during a worship service.

I know God moves everywhere (I was baptized in a mega church; it certainly happens). But I also know our own personal seasons change as God sanctifies and our minds are renewed. We start seeing things differently, which is jarring, especially when we crave comfort, the same, normality, the everyday.

But again, when I read Scripture, I don't see a comfy seat, an air-conditioned room, an opportunity to complain about the music.

I see hearts laid bare before God and others, a commitment to honesty and transparency, a walk that is hard but taken in community.

There certainly isn't a right way to do "church," and I think that's because we are the church, brothers and sisters together, no matter the building in which we meet.

But there is a right way to obey the Lord's calling. And if we listen, we'll find the next step in the path that leads to eternity with Him.