What is Church?

I've been thinking about this question some lately, especially with some specific happenings in my life. I've grown up in the Wesleyan Protestant tradition and have always seen the typical ways of that church as what church was. Things like hymns, testimonies, sermons, special singing, and readings are present in most of my thoughts of church. But with the post-modern era becoming more and more real in the church today, is the traditional and timeless church or the unorthodox and vibrant church a portrayal of what church really is and should be? With my Wesleyan ways being down the middle of the two, I've had a window into each of the extremes recently that have caused my wonderings.

The first of those came on Miami Ink on TLC. For those of you who don't watch TLC, Miami Ink is a show of a tattoo parlor in Miami, FL and it is based around the day in and day out of the parlor. It focuses on the tattoos given and the people they are given to. They always involve the story behind the tattoo and an insight into the life of the person being adorned with it. One particular person and tattoo that has stood out in my mind is that of a pastor. He was in his 20's probably and getting a tattoo with a picture of blue face of Jesus and underneath it it said, "Born to RAZE hell." He talked about how he uses all of his [many] tattoos as a way to reach people. When someone looks at his tattoos or asks about them, he can use them as a way to evangelize. He said that after he became saved he felt a calling to evangelism, both through tattoos and a church. He said he was standing outside a punk show and saw all the misfits and outcasts that were leaving the show and he felt God tell him to take care of these kids and build a church for these kids. So he did. It showed a short clip of this church on the show and you saw a large room filled with people all sitting on the floor, and you saw him in front in jeans and a tshirt and his tattoos preaching to these kids. You couldn't understand what he was saying but at the end of the clip you see him jump in the air and invite the congregants to jump with him, which they did. This guy was sharing Jesus' love through tattoos and a church for misfits (which, side note, is who the Church of the Nazarene kind of started out being for... the poor and the lowly, like the people from Nazareth.).

My second portrayal of church occurred today when I went to Chicago with Amanda's Russian History class to a Russian Orthodox Church. This church has an immense history; bearing the home of the first martyr of the Russian Orthodox Church under Joseph Stalin, when he returned to Russia after being a missionary to America to encourage the brethren there. He was the first of thousands of Russian Orthodox Christian priests to die for his faith. Also, this church was designed by Louis Sullivan, who was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. The walls were covered (I counted 40 pictures just within my peripheral vision) with pictures of Russian and American saints along with pictures of Jesus and and his disciples and the "ever-virgin Mary" (or Lady Theotokos). The entire service was scripted in the Divine Liturgy book, which gave the parts of the priest, the deacon, and the choir (which we joined in on). Periodically throughout the service the deacon would shake a lamp which contained incense at all the saint's pictures. The entire service, with the exception of the short sermon and the announcements, was sang as a recitative in basically the same tune. The tricky part was when lines had more words than their tune allowed for and we had to force the extra words into about 2 seconds to make things work. The church continued on to communion, where only the "traditional Orthodox Christians" could partake and was done by the priest spooning a piece of bread that had been soaking in the wine into the mouth of the person partaking while the altar boys held a red cloth up to the person's neck as a bib. Whenever the trinity was mentioned (which was quite often) all Orthodox Christians crossed themselves up, down, right, then left, and sometimes down to the ground to represent prostration before God in worship. The entire service, except the nonsung parts, was a prayer to God on behalf of the sick, the civil authorities, the church leaders, the dead, and was pelted with the phrase "Lord have mercy." The service ended with a prayer recited in the Russian language, then all the Orthodox Christians went to the front and kissed the cross which was held by the head priest.

Wow. Can we really call both the punk church and this Orthodox church church? Can these really be worshipping the same God? Can these really both survive as the Church and be blessed as the church of God? Though I find things I don't like in both of these churches (for one, would I honestly feel excepted in either of these churches?), which is going to last? Which is going to best represent God? Though in my mind the Orthodox Church seems a dying breed with the present age of spontaneity and nontraditional church practices, can this church with no history and no network outside of Miami survive the ups and downs of the society in terms of religious interests? Maybe the happy medium quasi-spontaneous, quasi-traditional, and extremely networked Nazarene Church is more of an accurate portrayal of a lasting church? Maybe, as I've heard said, Church is going to stop being held in church buildings altogether and will become small groups meeting in coffee shops and restaurants and libraries: disconnected from large groups of believers, but very connected to the nonreligious of the world.

Frederick Buechner once said, "There is perhaps no better proof for the existence of God then the way year after year he survives the way his professional friends promote him." I was thinking about that a lot as I was pondering all of these things. Though that quote implies a gross and hypocritical misrepresentation of God, I think also it can apply to the wide variation of representations of God. However, no matter what church can be defined as, I know what I've seen in all of the above mentioned places: community. In the Russian Orthodox Church we found a community of believers who warmly welcomed us and asked if we had any questions and encouraged us to come back. I bet I would find the same in the punk rock church. This is found in my home church and my college church. People who really care about each other and about the people who walk through their doors. A church is family and families don't die off very easily. Maybe they'll all manage to last through the ages. I hope. I think God needs us to represent more sides of Him and his love than what can be found in one denomination or one individual church. I think God can speak through all these churches. Yeah, I think God's big enough.