Does God Need The Church?

Need! I am asked this question about Church quit often and I must admit that for me it gets harder and harder to answer.

Need! I am not sure precisely what people mean by the word need. That is, am I being asked does God's existence depend on the existence of the Church? Such a question would be very easy to dismiss and simply overlook. Certainly any believing person could say that God's existence is obvious and doesn't need our institutions to underwrite his/her existence. However, I must admit that such a question often haunts me. That is, is it possible that God's very existence is the phantom reality of the religious cast needing to explain their self consumption with the things spiritual.

Need! On a much deeper level the question about God's need of the church might reflect some hyper-arrogant assumption that the Church and her work is necessary for God to fulfill God's design for creation. This I think is probably the most heinous idea that I find among my liberal and conservative friends alike. Heinous because at root it suggest that God (the creator) is dependent on us (the creature) for the work that the creator does. Clergy are probably the worst at this, they banter words like co-creator or labor for the kingdom as if they work as creature is essential for God's work to be done.

Need! At another level the question of need might be rooted more specifically in an understanding of human relatedness. That is, the church is the axiom upon which individuals are able interact. In many ways the church fulfills God's sociological purposes. If this is the case I must say God would have been more successful had he invested his/her creative energies in a casino or rotary club. The church as a social axiom is a miserable failure.

Need! Let me suggest the only principle that I have come to be able to talk about the Church as needed, worthy, worthwhile or interesting is-- "the church as fragile body!" That is, Adam after the sin necessitates the existence of bodies. Not bodies that fulfill God's design. Not even bodies that do good work. Simply bodies of broken witnesses.

Yesterday, as I revisited Pekin, North Carolina-- where I was appointed while in seminary-- I was reminded once more by the people of Pekin about the radical holiness that exist in the midst of broken-ness. I heard of Roy who lost his children because the Department of Human Services doesn't understand his survivalist lifestyle and has deemed it child abuse. Deb who second husband kicked her out and now she is living with her son. Frank finding a girl on the internet and dumping his wife. I listened as a great-grandmother explained that she was caring for her great grand children while her grand-sons wife struggled with mental disabilities. I watch more than one old women and old man tell me that as they reach their last few years of life they feel worthless.

You see the churches-- when she is interesting or faithful does not find her meaning in mission statements, social revivals or for that matter reconciling the races, genders or any other liberal beating post. The church when she is interesting or faithful finds her meaning in the fragile work of relatedness. Yes that will include racial and gender reconciliation but when our mission begins with reconciliation it fails fundamentally to conceive of the messiness of our lives.