who needs church? - part 2

I've appreciated the dialogue we had in the last post about this beautifully blemished thing called the church and why we can often struggle with feeling compelled toward it (while simultaneously wondering if we should just walk away and "let it be"). I totally get that, because I think if we operated purely on reactive thinking or frustrated emotions we might easily come to such a conclusion. But when you slam those two senses together with an innate sense of our eternal selves (which is often called a soul), the church can be understood in a greater context than historical events alone.

We all know we don't live in a perfect world. At least, yet.
"Yet" - that's the thing we have to remember.

Heaven is when everything comes together and"church gets it right." In the meantime we're on the journey and shouldn't expect heaven to happen just yet. Perhaps glimpses when Christ-followers actually follow Christ, but never perfection.

On that note, I wanted to share this list I found from an article in Relevant Magazine. Written by Adam Cleveland, it's entitled "Looking for the Perfect Church That Doesn't Exist."

The top ten things I look for in my perfect church:

1. A church that isn’t too far away from my home, preferably a 10 to 15 minute drive.
2. A church that is actively involved in local and international social justice issues.
3. A church that offers a wealth of exciting, informative and life-changing Adult Education options, available at a variety of days and times throughout the week.
4. A church that is thoroughly intergenerational—all students in high school and younger would be paired with an older adult mentor.
5. An engaging, exciting, relevant, progressively-oriented, open and inviting twentysomething group that is co-pastored by a young couple just out of seminary, and staffed with engaging, exciting, relevant and progressively-oriented volunteers and parents from the congregation.
6. A church where everyone loves the young people in the church and encourages them to bring their unchurched friends to church (no matter what they look like) and has no problem letting the youth group band lead in worship.
7. A church that has a traditional service, a contemporary service, a modern worship service, a perfectly-blended worship service and an alt.worship gathering.
8. A service that is not too short, but not too long either – preferably an hour and ten minutes.
9. A pastor who is theologically trained (but doesn’t flaunt it), has an appropriate sense of humor and a wealth of life experience that makes for applicable and gripping stories that bring the scriptures to life.
10. A church where those who hold radically diverse theological beliefs sit next to one another, worship together and love and respect one another and their differences.

Intriguing... what's your spin on this? Personally, I'm not sure I buy into #7 and would rather it read "A church that has a service that spurs people on to being the Church all throughout the week." Then again, I don't know if I'd limit the dream to 10 things (although it does make for a nice little list).

Any idea of what your list would look like?

And perhaps the question behind that question is "Why are those things important to you?"

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good. (Psalm 54:6)
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:5a)