We Are The Church

Here's the thing: If the people who organize corporate computer training classes have not yet figured out that in order for their students to learn anything, the Internet Explorer icon on their training desktop needs to be disabled, well -- I think I know why Asia technologically surpasses the United States.
Last week, I was stuck in a FOUR hour training session on a program that I'm already familiar with, it's a little thing called e-mail. I was bored.
I tried to fight it but the little ball inside my mouse just kept creeping, creeping, creeping until low and behold the World Wide Web was open before me. After a cursory glance at My Space, my bank account and the national news, I still had about 3.75 hours left in class. I hit up Relevant Magazine's Web site and read a story by a guy named Joshua Longbrake. I've read his stories before. I enjoy the way his mind moves the pen, and because I had nothing better to do with my time, I decided to read his blog, www.thelongbrake.com. When Relevant author's post their blogspots, I really don't care much for them, usually because I haven't made up my mind on the whole online journaling thing. Isn't it just a huge ego trip on the author's part to think that there are other people in the netherworld of the internet who really care what that author has to say about life? Heh, heh, heh …
Turns out Mr. Longbrake actually has something to say. I was impressed. By his blog and his photos, but mostly I was impressed by the heart of everything he'd stuck out on a limb for the world to judge him by. His most recent post was about a conference he'd attended at Mars Hill. To me Mars Hill is sort of this icon of a church, and while I was reading about this guys exerience there, my heart became empbroiled with passion for the church as a whole.
A switch flipped in my brain, and sitting there in class began to fervently pray that God that would make The Rock like Mars Hill to the next generation of churches. God has blessed us here in Salt Lake City with an unbelievable wealth of talent, in the realms of music, art, marketing, leadership and words. He has given us an inspiration and vision. I feel in my bones that God will do something huge with The Rock. I just pray that it is all for his glory, and all within his will. God is building an army that will take the world by storm and I believe many will be surprised when it comes out of Salt Lake City, Utah.
While praying, I started to peruse one of Longbrake's photo galleries entitled "I am the Church." Kids from all across the country and the world submitted photos to his blog, each of which featured the term "I am the Church" some where in the shot. I loved the concept instantly, and it humbled me. The Church is so beautiful, we are His bride and as Donald Miller says Christ love us with a drunken passion. Not only does God love us so deeply, but we are the living, breathing, functioning close-as-we-are-going-to-get-in-this- lifetime picture of what God's Kingdom and what heaven will be like. Of course everything about the church isn't always perfect, because we are all still human and have the ability to royally muck up all things good, but God loves us still, and a functioning church family really is in my opinion the most beautiful thing that can exist on this earth. It was amazing to look at all these people and know that I am united with them. We are brothers and sisters because of God's great love for us and we are all fighting for one common purpose, the further glory of God through our lives.
Sitting in my computer class, I fully succumbed to this thought and was getting a little misty-eyed and ready to go take the world by storm there I see before me a beautiful girl standing in her bathroom mischievously grinning into her mirror. The reflection of the gray tile behind her brings out the blue in her eyes and the words "I am the Church" written in shaving cream frame a face I love dearly. She stares back at me from a random page on a stranger's web site.
The girl is Naomi Triggs. A woman who serves the Lord on staff of a Great Commission church plant in Amsterdam. She and I were on the same small group when we lived in Fort Collins, Colorado. She moved to Amsterdam the same week I moved to Salt Lake City to do the same thing in two cities that could not be more different for each other. Since the time we moved half a world away from each other God has grown and changed us aplenty. He's taught, trained, refined and purified us, through heartache and through joy. Naomi spent an unplanned stint as a bonus roommate of mine a little while ago. As a result of that time, she is one of the women whom I most admire in this world, because, well, she gets it.
So there she was, in her bathroom in a tiny apartment in Amsterdam. And there I was behind a computer console in Utah. Both of us serving the purpose that God intended us for: loving Him, loving other believers and loving the lost. We do it in different ways, on different continents, in different languages, and with different people, but the goal is the same.
She is the Church.
I am the Church.
We are the Church.