When the church forgets to be the church

         It is a sad fact that often the church, as Christ's body of believers, actually forgets that it is called to be the church. To live by the example of Christ in the world.  All too often we as the church concern ourselves with our personal judgment of things, rather than responding with the example of Christ.  On a larger scale we have disagreements about baptism; dunking, sprinkling or pouring, believers baptism versus infant baptism.  We argue about communion elements, must they contain wheat and alcohol to be legitimate or does juice and gluten free stuff count as well.  And then we will continue our disagreement with who shall take communion, only those who believe as we do, all those who believe, or as is offered at worship here on Iona, "those who have faith and those who want more."

        But there are so many even smaller areas where we can forget that we are the church; when we spend days upon days arguing about money when mission and ministry are at stake, we are forgetting to be the church.  When it becomes more important how you look at church, than what you are doing as the church, we are forgetting to be the church.  When we accept at face value falsehoods about our brothers and sisters without asking them for verification, then we are forgetting to be the church.

What if we decide that we are the church and we are not going to forget?!

That would become a thin place.