I still can't figure out what church ought to be. Obviously there are ways of doing church that make it harder to be real than others, but I'm increasingly convinced that structure (except when it's really really bad) is the least of it. The problem, as always is people -- people who want ot be spiritual game players, people who only feel safe by condemning others, people who want to check their brains in the door and have someone tell them what to think, people who want everything to be about hierarchy and power, people who think everything's about sex, people who hide from their lack of experience of God by turning the Bible (no, their understanding of the bible) into God, people whose religion is about jumping through spiritual hoops, people who come to church to prove how good they are (not because they're needy), people who want to grow fat on spiritual junk food (no chewing required) and, most common of all, people who've built their own righteousness on submitting to their particular set of rules, and are threatened out of their skins by anyone else claiming to be a mature Christian and not keeping those rules.
Two further thoughts:
1. It's important to remember that church is still God's idea, not ours, even though we keep trying to turn it into something made in our own image
2. Which of those people am I being?
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