Prayerfully read this.
God bless you Chip & Karla Brogden
"So, what is 'The School of Christ'?" she asked.
We were standing in line at the grocery store and I thought, that's a good question. What is The School of Christ? How would I describe it to someone in the "real world" who has never read or listened to any of our teachings?
I'm not usually at a loss for words, but I was unprepared for the question and it took me a second to think it through.
"We work with people who don't go to church - especially those who have been hurt by church - and we help them get re-focused on their relationship with Christ, instead of religion." That was the best I could come up with on short notice, but I thought it was a pretty good synopsis.
She smiled knowingly and nodded her head. "Yes, there are lots of people who don't go to church. And I suppose there are some people who have been hurt by church. That's a really good thing you're doing," she said.
I waited for the other shoe to drop.
"But..." she wrinkled her forehead a bit as she contemplated the question that had to be asked in situations like this. "But... you DO try to get them to go BACK to church, don't you?"
I like answering a question with a question, so I asked, "Why would we do that?"
The smile on her face drooped a bit and now she was genuinely puzzled. "Well... because the church IS the Body of Christ..."
The conversation limped along from there. I gave her our website address, she promised to check it out, and we parted ways.
Will she "check us out"? Maybe. Probably not.
Do I care? Not so much anymore.
Why?
Because we're not called to help people who are still in church.
If you're happy with your church, happy with Sunday morning religion, happy with lukewarm preaching and Churchianity, happy to have your ears tickled once or twice a week, happy and content where you are, then far be it from me to tell you anything different.
To whom are we sent?
We are sent to help the ones burned out on religion, fed up with Churchianity, despised, rejected, and cut off from the Institutional Church.
We are sent to help those starving, battered and beaten sheep who have been abused by the goats, fleeced by the shepherds, and attacked by the wolves.
We are sent to help the ones that the local church tries to get rid of - the troublemakers, the ones who ask too many questions, the ones who won't submit to the authority of their spiritually immature pastor.
We are sent to help the ones who have had their eyes opened and have been led by God to "come out of Babylon" while the rest of their friends think they are crazy, rebellious, backslidden and "just hurt."
We are sent to help the ones who have a gift, a calling, a heart, a burden for the Body of Christ - but see no way to pursue that calling because they've been misled into thinking that the only opportunities for serving God are in Church Land.
We are sent to help the 1,000,000+ people every year who stop going to church, and to the untold millions of people who are searching for spiritual truth, and have an inkling that Jesus is that Truth, but have no intention of going to church to look for Him there.
The fields are white and ready to be harvested - and Churchianity has failed them.
During our trip to Costa Rica in 2003, standing amidst the ramshackle huts where the poorest of the poor live as refugees, we saw a big purple monster of a church casting its grim shadow over us as we stood in the filth just across the street from it.
This "purple church" was supposed to represent royalty, I suppose.
What a picture of the arrogance of Churchianity.
Religion's response to Jesus' prayer for more workers to go into the harvest has been to build churches and expect that the harvest would just pick itself up and walk itself into their nice little buildings without them having to lift a finger.
Well, the harvest didn't harvest itself. So the church buildings supposedly constructed to "reach the Lost" have become country clubs for born-again folk too self-absorbed and detached from the real world to have any meaningful impact - fortresses to shut the world out and keep the saints warm, dry, fed and comfortable.
The only real church growth these days comes from Christians changing churches, and churches trying to be more attractive to other Christians.
Quite frankly, ministries have also had to learn how to be more attractive to other Christians if they want to survive.
I want no part of that.
I'm tired of trying to be attractive to other Christians. I've never had a sinner ask for, or give two hoots about, my "doctrinal statement."
I'm tired of trying to please church-going folk.
The School of Christ is going to focus on pleasing God and helping people who need help.
We're not starting a new movement. We are continuing in the same spirit of the original movement that Jesus started 2,000 years ago when He sent His disciples into all the world with a simple
mandate: "Make disciples of all people."
Karla and I have a purpose to fulfill on this earth through The School Of Christ. After taking some time off to pray and refocus, the Lord has strongly reminded me to be about my Father's business and to concentrate on the ones "to whom we are sent."
We have walked a long, hard, tiring road to come to the place that we are at now, but "the steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord" - and this has been true with us, as I'm sure it has been true with you as well.
Sufficiently rested, I am even more aware now that the time is short and the harvest is plentiful. In these days of darkness and confusion, when it seems like the world is falling apart and there is no hope, we have a wide open door and a wonderful opportunity to be a light and to bring hope to the world.
I'll be sharing more about our purpose and specific direction in the weeks to come. In the meantime, thank you for your support of The School of Christ, and please let us know if we can serve you in any way.
In Him,
Chip Brogden
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