Kimberly Majeski
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Confessions of a Chic, Church Chick

3/25/2012

3 Comments

 
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I am posting these twelve confessions in response to the conversations on the blogosphere of the past week incited by Rachel Held Evans' post and others who have shared reasons why they have left and returned to the church.

Growing up in and now serving the church, I humbly offer these confessions as a self-proclaimed church chick. I am someone who has known God’s love in a local congregation and someone who has been both lost and found. I share these reflections from the inside looking out.

1. I believe the church is the Missio Dei, the community of the baptized, those who are reconciled to God through Christ by the Spirit who are now called to represent Christ to the world. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1.27). Mission is not a department in the church or an office down the hall, justice and evangelism are nature defined as the redeemed people of God. So it is impossible for us to be in Christ Jesus and turn our backs on the “least of these” (Matt. 25).

2.  I confess, sometimes community is really hard work. The process of knowing and being known takes time. Love is messy and living authentically together occasionally requires hard conversations and always necessitates grace upon grace. Often it proves easier to just let things go, or to cover up what is most true. If we are to be the true communion of Christ then we must remove our masks and bear our scars and lean on each other as we struggle through; and let’s be clear, we are all struggling.

3. I believe in the “priesthood of all believers” and am saddened that we’ve tossed this notion aside to build churches around individual personalities and have come to rely too heavily upon our clergy. In the early church, Paul is clear that there are many gifts possessed in the body and all are needed for the building up of the kingdom. God’s work does not rest with our pastors alone and the pastoral office should be dedicated to equipping and empowering believers for service in the world.

4. I believe theology should address suffering and be honest about the gritty, hard questions of life. Easy answers won’t do because they don’t hold us up in the darkness and formulas fall apart in tragedy. Our theology should say what is true, life is hard, God loves us and God is with us. “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16.33).

5. I believe evangelism is not something you do to someone else, it is a way of being in the world, it is proclaiming the story of divine love with your life.

6. I believe sermons should cause people to think, not do all of the hard work for them. Preaching should be biblically sound and vulnerable; preachers should be prepared to exegete a text as well as exegete life and if you have three easy application points you have already lost me. Watch reality television and log on to face-book because this is where your flock lives.

7. I confess I am continually heart sick and angered that in many church traditions today women are not accepted into pastoral leadership. Even in my own tradition, where women in ministry are a long celebrated distinction the chasm between theory and practice is an ocean. Throughout the biblical witness God has used women, Jesus came into the world through God and a woman, Jesus and Paul shared ministry with women, Pentecost demonstrates the gift of the Spirit falling upon sons and daughters. Enough said.

8. I believe love is stronger than the grave; I believe love is the most excellent thing (Song of Solomon 8.6, I Cor. 13). Our time on this planet is well spent giving and receiving love, this is when we are most like Christ. Judgment and condemnation is not the work of fallen creatures such as we are. Jesus said the world would know us by our love (John.13).

9. I believe the kingdom of God is not what we eat or drink but how we live, how we love and how we celebrate the principles of this upside down kingdom in our hearts; a kingdom where the poor are rich and the weak are strong and the first are last; a table to which all are invited (Romans 14.17).

10. I believe the Sabbath is not the Sunday worship service but a ritual and routine time of rest observed by the Creator and intended for every creature under heaven. I believe the observance of Sabbath requires our trust in the providence of God which is why so few of us will ever know the gift of true rest (Hebrews 4).

11. I believe God is without gender and female and male are made in God’s image. I believe dropping the pronoun would go a long way to help all of God’s children know that we are all a part of God’s story.

12. I confess I have days when I doubt. I have walked into that valley where it did not seem possible that God could be good and at the same time, allow the events of my life be what they were.  I confess for the largest part of my life I thought God existed to lift me out of pain rather than to stand with me in it. I believe God is bigger than our questions and faith without questions is no faith at all.

What do you believe? What are your confessions from the inside out?
3 Comments
Tammy Vogt
3/29/2012 03:53:19 am

Powerful post today, Kimberly. I have found myself in a process of shedding and redefining my faith in the last 10 years. It continues to transform my view of the Church and increase my love for it. While I think many of your statements are still (sadly) not widely accepted in the Church I do agree wholeheartedly with you and am encouraged with the 'like-mindedness'. Thanks for sharing...

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Audio visual systems link
5/9/2012 05:31:24 pm

Blog is absolutely fantastic! All great information can be helpful in some or the other way. Keep updating the blog,looking forward for more content.

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India Pryor
6/29/2019 06:16:05 pm

I confess, if this blog affords me complete honesty, that I have mixed feelings about the current climate of the Body of Christ.

I often read articles, blogs and social media posts reflective of a Christian forum where God's presence is no where to be found. Places that have become plagued by humanism, relativism, spiritual compromise and/or religion without the Spirit of God.

I guess, if I surrender to self-awareness, I am in pursuit of a space that facilitates transparency and truth and propels believers into harmony with the Kingdom of God instead of the Kingdom of this world?

Does such a place exist?

I forgot to mention that I have tried the physical church attendance. My experience with that has not been much different. I have found, often but not always, counterfeit life and love. Houses built for God disconnected from Jesus and His ministry. Religous rituals and secular programs driven by human agenda idolarty.

So here I am. Writing on this blog feeling so powerless.

So many say we seek the truth, yet, the tendency is to conceal it and live behind a Christian facade. Too ashamed to confess the bad choices and decisions rendering ourselves ineffective conduents of change.

I try not to respond to the things I see or hear. This is a practice I have recently implemented. In part out of fear of God and the fact we are taught in James 1:19 (KJV) to be slow to speak and slow to wrath. But also because I have found that so many of us want to be heard but far too few of us want to do the listening to the voice of God and to one another. This post struck a chord in my heart so I prayed and was led to share what lay dormant in my heart.

I confess that the condition, that has led the body of Christ to become defined by the individuality and autonomy of it's members instead of it's Chief Cornerstone from which it has been built upon, has left me feeling powerless ( Ephesians 2:20 KJV).

However, If I give way to grace, I can admit that man is an imperfect being. Therefore, perpetually subject to human error. The Apostle Paul describes this concept in Romans (3:10-18 KJV). It is what I believe to be the human nature. This passage also reinforces Old Testament teaching from David that we are all under sin and not one of us is righteous, no, not one (Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3 KJV).

So tell me then, why does the body of Christ, or as Luke describes us to be "the children of the resurrection", rely so heavily on man and so little on the Spirit of God (20:36 KJV). From the Old to the New Testaments the Spirit of God has been the identifying presence of God in and through humanity. Empowering those who obey God while convicting or departing from those who disobey Him.

Apostle Paul instructs us to be filled with the Spirit. The Apostle John admonishes us to allow the Spirit to teach and guide us unto all truth and away from all error (Ephesians 5:18; 1 John 2:24-27). When the Spirit of God is present people encounter God in life changing ways. An omnipresent, omniscient God does not need our programs or our human wisdom to operate. It is through the willingness of a contrite heart that He is able to do the most work.

Why then are we all about human wisdom and social work. Don't get me wrong. These are all good things, indeed. Nonetheless, these are things designed to sustain a world system that does not operate under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.

The Apostle John, zealous himself for truth, warns us not to give our love and devotion to the world because as born again believers that should belong to God (1 John 2:15-17 KJV). Keeping that in mind, shouldn't the things of this world simply supplement our activity and not be the driving force behind it. If I want to truly reach the lost then I must rely on the One who was sent to redeem them. It is through Jesus Christ that we are able build His Kingdom. As He declares, in his own words, in Mark 2:17 KJV:

"...They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance".

I donot not say any of this with a critical spirit but rather with a sorrowful one. I am among many who seek the will of God under an unified Church, as Scripture teaches us to be, filled with and operating under the Holy Spirit of God. So, where is that place where the followers of Christ can openly fellowship in love with sinners continuing His work and ministry?

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  • Home
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