I am about 100 miles north of my usual haunts. It is a long weekend, and I need a break. So this morning, sitting in a small bed and breakfast, with two coffees in me, I am contemplating which church to go to. One says on its website.

As an outward looking church
we will engage with the people of Timaru
with passion, enthusiasm and energy,
showing and telling God’s love;
listening to and caring for community needs,
so people find meaning through knowing God
and move forward in faith.

Um, No. I would prefer my blood pressure remain within normal limits this morning.

Another starts

We are a group of diverse people who gather to worship our God and Saviour Jesus Christ on Sunday mornings, meet in smaller groups during the week to study the Bible, minister to the poor and needy in our community, and enjoy socialising and having fun together.

I think I’ll avoid them as well, and find the Fundamentalist Baptists, who cling to the KJV. That may be a little nuts, but they don’t use corporate buzzwords on their front page.

As if the church is supposed to be a corporation. It is not.

Instead it is more like a leviathan: the head is christ and the cells are us.

Timaru before bed, last night.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

(Ephesians 4:1-16 ESV)

The question is why do we have church? I can read the bible. I can go for a walk and praise God. I can think I am spiritual. But I will inevitably fall into error because I am but one person and I am very flawed. The image of Leviathan, a giant where we are the cells or organs and Christ runs it was from Hobbes.

Leviathan

A more relevant image for today is a Mecha. a transformer, a machine controlled by the man within but made very large, to do very large things.

Yeah, I am thinking of Transformers.

We are not to be alone. Firstly Christ sent the Spirit to be with us. Secondly, we are supposed to be in a church. For together we can do more. The question then must be why do we have a church. And the answer is so we become mature. So we don’t follow trends and fashions.

So we don’t get fooled, nor seduced by our attendance or traffic count. That we see the church do great things, perhaps even turn our society from a path to death.

And then praise God, for it is his doing, not ours.