Have you ever received one of those chain emails about the "cute things kids say"? I know I've received several about everything from what they say to their teachers to what they say about God. Their answers are always clear and heartfelt, able to cut through the fog in which we adults seem so easily to get caught.
Once a month a group of us go to a neighborhood park in an attempt to get to know the people in the area and spend time with them. We've held several events in the park over the past six years; everything from Vacation Bible School to events at Easter, around Halloween and at Christmas. There is one young man, now going into the sixth grade, who is always at the events. He seems to know everyone in the neighborhood and everyone seems to know or known of him. Whenever we are there, whether for a big event or for lunch at the park when we go once a month, he always comes right up to us and says hello. He's even run up to our children's director in the middle of Target.
The last time we were at the park he said something that got me thinking, something that I still think about over a month later. Now in a park, being public property, we aren't always able to control what happens around us. On this particular Saturday someone was standing out in front of an apartment complex across the street from the park wasn't using the nicest language as they yelled across the street to someone in front of another apartment complex. Upon hearing the exchange our young soon-to-be sixth grader yells out:
"Watch the language. We're having church here."
That is probably one of the most profound comments I've heard to this point in my life about the church.
Mind you we were not singing worship songs, reading scripture, having a time of communal prayer or any of the things that easily pop into my mind when I hear the word "church". But what is the church? It certainly isn't a building. It isn't a certain way of ordering a worship service. The church is the gathered body of Christ. Even as a group of eight believers gathered around that picnic table, adults and children, we were the church. It probably didn't look like the church from the perspective of others in the park or across the street but it was; we were.
Since that Saturday I've thought about how easy it can be to dismiss that which we see but don't really understand. We filter the world through our own worldview and experiences. When we don't take the time to really find out what is going on, to meet, talk, and hear from people we can completely misunderstand and mislabel what is going on.
What does the church really look like? What does it look like in Stockton? In America? In the world? I don't have ready, succinct answers to any of these questions other than to say that each answer is big and far more profound than any sentence I could construct. I appreciate the fact that this soon-to-be sixth grader has helped me, though the simplest of comments, to look outside my own experience and see the world around me through his eyes and I hope there will be many more opportunities to do so in the future.
