Thoughts from My Journey

Organic, it is all around us. Organic food, organic milk, and organic clothes it seems that everyone and every company is jumping on the organic bandwagon. Even the church world has jumped on it, including myself. There are books titled The Organic Church and Organic Leadership. Why? Why is this happening?

 I think that as a society we have become fed up with all the fluff in the world. We want something that is raw and natural. We are tired of the preservatives and the extras that are added to our food, water and everything else that we encounter in life. On some level we want to get back to simpler times. We long for the days when things were real, no MSG, nothing false.

This movement is not new in fact the same thing was happening to some degree when I was in High School. We would watch people to see if that person was real if not we termed them “plastic” at times we would call them credit cards. Why?Credit cards are not real money. It is a representation of something that is real, they are plastic, fake.

 Now that this same generation that was calling people plastic has grown up and is in a place of influence in the market place and in church we have taken over the advertising and as a result the culture with the message……BeReal…Be Who You Are…Quite wearing masks, Be ORGANIC.

 The amazing thing is that this message actually starts several thousand years ago. Jesus started a movement where He challenged people to be real. He challenged them to look at themselves as they really were and to come to God on that basis. He understood that the only way to have a real relationship with the Father was not by pretending to be something we are not but by coming to Him as we are. He challenged the current thought process that said you had to approach God on the basis of your works. He let it be known that the people that were real, the ones that were not afraid to cry out as He passed by, the ones that would climb up a tree just to get a better look at Him, the ones that were willing to eat the crumbs that fell from the table like a dog, He let it be known that these were the ones that He came for. These are the ones that He wants to have a relationship with. Jesus rejected those that were “plastic.”

 As I look at the world around us I see people crying out for something real. I see them frustrated with the church in America because it has been “plastic” for so long. It has been a sorry representation of what the church was supposed to be and has done a horrible job portraying Christ to the world around it. I know that I may be jumping on a trend that may pass in our culture,but the church needs to get back to the place of being organic, real, without the fluff, just a heart wrenching, life changing relationship with God. It needs to become the place of forgiveness, mercy and grace that it is supposed to be. It needs to once again become the place were we can be honest with ourselves, God and others about our struggles. It needs to become safe, were condemnation has no place, were fear is eradicated and love wins out.  

It needs to put on the sandals of its leader and walk in the places that the “plastic” will not go. It needs to echo the call of the founder to love the unlovable and to be organic.

People wonder why there is a decline in the churches in America. Have you ever noticed that things that are organic grow while things that are plastic never do?

  Pastor Tim