Freed From Church

It is no secret how much The Yankee and I love, not only our church, but our Pastor, Roger, who has become such a dear friend to us over the years. Offending anyone is never on my agenda.  This post may touch a nerve with some readers, and if so, I would ask you to ask yourself why does it? And then see if the Holy Spirit doesn't reveal an answer to you! God is good like that!!

We call ourselves, "The Church That Doesn't Care"....that does not mean we don't care about the people that come into the church.  Quite the opposite actually, it means a lot of things.  We don't care what you wear.  Prime example...I am part of the Praise and Worship team.  I can promise you there have been Sunday mornings where I have stood on stage and sang in jeans and a sweatshirt.  Amazingly my voice sounds the EXACT same as it does when I am dressed up!  We don't care where you came from or how much money you have or don't have. We just want you there, learning about Jesus right along side us.  We also do not care about "churchy" things.  If it is your goal to be a deacon or a committee member, then our church might not be for you, we don't do either.  If your idea of going to church means you just have to attend a business meeting every week, then you probably wouldn't like our church either.  We don't do business meetings.

Maybe you are wondering how we survive without all of the normal "church" things.  Truly you haven't even heard the two biggest things yet.  One, we do not pass an offering plate.  Ever.  And two, we will never have a building.  Ever.  We meet at the local middle school and I can tell you that after all these years, I leave that middle school feeling closer to God and having grown more than I ever could have in any church building.  "Why would you not have a building?" You might be asking yourself.  Simple.  All of our money goes back to the community. Since our church has zero bills, we are free to help out those in need as much as we can. I am presumptious enough to believe God might just be totally on board with this concept!!!

Do you ever feel like "church" has lost the meaning of what "church" is supposed to be about?  I shudder when I hear of the fights over things that happen at churches..but the amazing thing is, when there is no building, no committees, and your focus is actually on Jesus and helping others (where it is supposed to be, if I am not mistaken), then there is nothing to argue about to begin with.  Suddenly the church becomes "free" to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit without the "nagging wife" in the background always griping about something.

This may be news for some folks, but success isn't about how many people come to a church.  Success isn't even about how much money that church brought in that week.  From a church stand point success should be about how many people grew closer to Christ that Sunday.  That's it.  Period.  NOTHING ELSE.  And if no one in church is growing closer to Christ because they are worried about how many people to get through the doors or how to spend the money, then the flat out truth is "church" isn't doing it's job.

“success should be about how many people grew closer to Christ that Sunday”

Our church is a treasure, a blessing.  Not perfect mind you, no church is, no pastor is, and certainly no congregation is.  But many of us at ClearView needed to be freed from "church" so that God could do what he wanted to do in our lives.  I can only speak for my husband and myself, but being freed from church was when our journey truly began!  Stay tuned to the next post for more about that!!!