I think its because I know that most Christians when they hear those words believe that today’s dominant expression of church in America should continue to be the default image in our minds when we think “church” .  This expression of the Church is the Sunday morning programmatic model, built around staff, buildings, high-cost infrastructure – with the aims of becoming another “mega”church.  This the picture most people think of when they think of “church” – at least here in the West.

And yes – every part of me is thankful to God that there are tens of thousands of churches built around that expression of God’s family – it is obviously reaching tens of millions of people with the authentic Gospel of God!  Praise God for that!  Lives are changed!

And yet – there are still 250 million people who were not a part of a church gathering last Sunday – and have no connection with a church…many more still may have no true commitment to the Lord Jesus.  And that number is growing all the time.

So a quote stands out to me:

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve already got.” — Genius unknown

Jeff Kirsch, a member of the City on a Hill faith community has a recent, great post on some of the metaphors and assumptions Jesus used to describe what God’s Family looks like – yeast, field, flock, seed, soil… this is a Kingdom, a church that doesn’t need institutional maintenance and a ministry marketing department -

…it is a “subtle contagion”…

…or as in Mark 4:26-29 the farmer (read pastor) sleeps while the Kingdom grows beyond his control!

Why not work with the grain of the Kingdom, rather than against it?

Let the Gospel seed grow underground in your friendships, permeating every nook and cranny of your life – truly trust that the fire of mission and divine love will bubble up in people as you share life on life with them.

Trust that Jesus truly is the head of the Church – and not you and your staff.  Could it be that our churches look too much alike – each vying for the same 15% of the population – meanwhile hundreds of millions more are looking desperately for a church that looks like Jesus-with-skin-on in their context, only to find the same praise band or Powerpoints wherever they go.

I’m writing this not out of anger or bitterness; I’m writing this as a missionary, crying desperately for the Christians to reach out to a lost world.  Could it be that the biggest obstacle for people in discovering the true Lord Jesus and his Church is our pre-conceived notions of what church is and how it should function in the world?

The lost need us to recapture the characteristics of the Kingdom of God and to tear down the walls of the church-box in our mind.  The desperate are dying for us to incarnate the Gospel in fresh ways on our block – even as we love and bless what God is doing down the street.

I am cautiously optimistic though, as I look at the horizon of “church planting” – the wineskin of the church is becoming fresh, new. Churches gathering in nightclubs, poetry circles, homes, parks, under overpasses and in city centers.  Churches that live together 24/7, that function as a little family and a source of light and healing for their blighted neighborhood.  I’m seeing new forms of God’s family take shape in our little organic church network.  I’m seeing new faith-community experiments bubble up all over Chicago, and the country.

Its time to take the lid off – where might things spread if we took Jesus’ images of his Church seriously?

Its BOTH/AND.

While that is staggering, consider even still the number of marriages that might stick together but “go cold” either through slow neglect or compromise.

A recent report in the NY Times suggested that marriage is understood primarily as a way of advancing yourself and your image, using your spouse to take you to new heights.  Whether this is conscious or not, this expert says that you get married to advance your own social network, to arrange a healthier outlook on things, to make you a better person, to rally up the ladder of your own life.  According to this study, marriage is the greatest “career move” you could make for life.

But I believe that just accelerates the problem we’re seeing with crumbling marriages.  When we marry “for ourselves” – we will toss him out when the next guy comes along with a better set of friends, or dresses better, or… the list goes on and on.  Sure, maybe at the beginning you are attracted to a gal because of how she makes you feel about yourself, the way she interacts with others, and so on – but if it remains what I can get out of this relationship – how I can advance myself… the marriage is doomed from the start.

Maturity in marriage is learning to submit your own desire, and to live for the desires of the other. I am continually amazed at my wife’s ability to do this.  ”Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ,” is the verse that begins the discussion in Ephesians on the mission of husbands and wives in marriage – Paul asks wives to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ, and husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.  Men and women have different roles in a relationship, and there is order to the family structure.

But look again, what does submission and Christ-like love have in common?  Laying your own life down for the sake of the other.

This is how marriages truly last - true and mutual submission. Not in the “lock-jaw” do-it-and-shut-up-about-it kind of submission, I’m talking about the joy-filled desire to see the other person advance as far as she can go – and cheering them on in every way possible.  When both parties do that, both are depositing trust into the relationship, rather than scavenging each other’s social brownie-points for sake of their own “self-expansion.”

Isaiah hears God describe his passionate love for Israel, as a “young love” in passionate desire for the other.  Even after all that Israel had done to betray God’s trust, he is completely consumed with love for them.  But God has a matured, seasoned love for his people too – one that goes beyond just the “me-marriages” we’re reading about in today’s papers; it is a love he is willing to do anything for – to see them advance, rather than just getting what he wants out of the relationship.  This is what “steadfast love” looks like – to lay down what you’re hoping to get out of the relationship – and pursuing the other person as the central object of your affections…

But the new way of doing things in St. Louis was epiphanied while watching an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. How is it that a whole house can be built in one week, without any new technology or extra people on the site?  And how could this same success be incorporated into the adoption process?  Could we have a Home Adoption: Extreme Edition?  This is what’s happening in the adoption agency in St. Louis.

Instead of taking years to connect a child with a quality home, the whole agency focuses in on one child a week – applying for multiple placing services at once (verses one at a time) and pushing to get all cylinders firing to get this kid in a loving family.

And most interestingly, for many of the children, that loving family is their own.

The agency hires two private investigators to hunt down the rest of the original family of the foster child.  These gumshoes do pavement pounding, online research, and drum through the public records to contact uncles, grandmas, and cousins…anyone who might be distantly related to the abandoned child.

Stats say that families are more likely to adopt an orphaned nephew or grandchild than a total stranger.  And studies are saying its healthier for the kid too.  It’s important that a young person is connected to their known family, and thus, a larger story.

While reading Isaiah 43 today, I couldn’t help notice God describing himself as a “kinsman redeemer” - which fit perfectly with role of the private investigators.  A Redeemer in ancient society was to be a fail-safe of protection for a family if they got separated, sold into slavery, or otherwise in danger.  The Redeemer would either buy them out of slavery, or take action against the oppressors and rescue the family member. While foster homes are not exactly slavery – it is so encouraging to think that children across the nation are being fought for with such white-hot intensity, and re-assimilated into their very own family.

For as long as it takes, this agency fights tooth and nail for the salvation of one little kid.

And God is your Redeemer. He is carving a path through wilderness and trying to make contact with you. He wants to introduce you to his family…to RE-introduce you to a family you forgot you were a part of. His aim is to rescue you, to ransom you, to remind you of who you truly are.

It can be frightening for children so long separated from their biological families to be reintroduced into the family system – but it is many times the healthiest thing for them. Give yourself the same chance - look for where your Redeemer is coming from, and run toward him.  Then be about the business of rescuing others!