Understanding the Church

We had a really good church service on Friday at the Jabriya Life Center. I was hoping to take several pictures during the service, but I felt a little guilty to be taking pictures of people who are devoting their hearts and minds to Jesus while I'm casually taking pictures of those moments. I did manage to take a few, and next week I'll try to get one of the ushers to do it so it's not distracting to myself and to others.

The Lighthouse church has been doing a sermon series about the Apostles Creed and going back to basics in our Christian faith. It has been a powerful series explaining the basic tenets of Christian Life, including the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Creation and the Virgin Birth. This week Pastor Mark discussed the "Holy Catholic Church."

Worship at Jabriya Life Center on Friday

While it could be easy to recap the entire message because it was really good, I wanted to highlight two things that were interesting to me being in an international church in  with Kuwait. The first was the number of people previous Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christian backgrounds. Pastor Mark asked how many people came from that kind of background and the majority of the congregation answered affirmatively. In an international congregation with people from Asia, North America, Africa, and Oceania, most of them came from this kind of background.

I believe that these backgrounds are legitimately a part of the Christian faith, but from talking to many people from these backgrounds over the years, the majority would say they were not real Christians. Yes, they followed the rules to the letter, but many of them did not have a heart and love for Jesus as our Savior. As a result, many of the temptations and tendencies of people from these backgrounds are to become too entangled in the rules of Christian faith, rather than the heart of faith. Of course, it is important to follow God's commands, but it's equally, if not more important, to have a love and desire for Jesus that generally fuels these commands rather than out of sheer will-power.

The second highlight from the sermon was when Pastor Mark was discussing the importance and value of the church. He mentioned that the church is an imperfect structure because it has sinful people in it, and that people will fail us, including parents, spouses and friends. The church is no exception.

He then asked how many people have been hurt by someone in the church, and I was blown away at the response. Nearly everyone in the church had put their hand up. It was both heartbreaking and unifying to see the overwhelming response of people who had been previously hurt by the church in our congregation.

The previous week, there was an opportunity for prayer after the service, and I prayed for a young woman who was clearly in distress about being hurt by the church. She didn't give me many details, but she was in tears about it. I happily prayed for her healing and I also encouraged her that the resilience to come back to church after something traumatic like that is a sign of genuine faith in Jesus. In my mind, I thought that was a unique experience for someone in our church, but seeing all those hands demonstrated that her experience is tragically common.

Church Picnic at the park

I believe that the Church will fail people, because it is full of people. I also believe that people should not associate a negative experience with the church as a rejection of Jesus and Christianity. At the same time, it is also critical as the church to be sensitive and strive by the power of Jesus to not cause further damage and to bring healing.

I hope that I can encourage, love and support people in the church through my actions and words. We are taught as children that 'sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me.' However, the Bible gives much more weight to the power of words and says that 'life and death are in the power of the tongue.'

As a Christian, I want to be on my guard to not tear people down, even if it's for a humorous purpose. We need to be sensitive and have the church be a hospital for healing, not another courtroom of judgment and damnation, especially in the same household of faith.