Messy – just messy

Messy – just messy

  
Do you like messy Christianity? How about messy church? I suppose we had better specify both terms before you answer. Messy Christianity is simply a variation of whatever you describe as being 'Normal' Christianity. To me, it is a form of Christianity in which you get hands on, dirty, and messy. You meet and deal with real people, real life, real situations in the real world. The people you deal with might be relatively poor, homeless, hungry, or just between a rock and a hard place right now. You may be a social worker or a layman, but you can find yourself confronted with a situation that needs help in order to get dealt with.

Messy church, on the other hand, invites those we may well meet "doing" messy Christianity into our churches on Sunday morning. It means that ladies can no longer leave their handbag or purse lying around trusting that no one would touch it because "this is church and it's a safe place."

These definitions change all the usual Christian rules, frequently replacing them with worldly rules abhorred in our cosy, sanctified, and predominantly safe churches. Messy church and Christianity changes all the old rules from safe to, well – messy. I recall a story about an ordinary working man going to a very well to do Anglican church only to be told that “there is no place for you here.” Defending his stance the presiding prelate said he had a very upper middle class church and he needed to ‘protect them’ from those who very clearly did not fit in with that type of people. That church could never handle messy church – would never even try to do so.

Like many other churches in all denominations, there are so many who don’t want too many ‘messy Christians’ in their midst. Even in our church in the not so very distant past, we heard the question, “Do we really want those kind of people here?” I can just imagine how one or two so-called ‘super-churches’ would handle messy Christians alongside their “star members”.

Church, we need to get used to this messy Christianity, and right now too. There are many hurting, damaged people coming to faith in Jesus who need healing and discipling. This is original church in a 21st century context! Jesus did not come for the rich, although neither did He turn them away. Jesus came for the sinner – that’s every man, woman, and child on the planet. He came for the poor, the bound, the captives, the lost – all of them/us. He died for all of us and my only advice to you today is this – get used to messy church and messy Christians. There will be thousands of them coming into our churches very soon now.

How will your church handle this? Better start preparing today.