Why I hate garden centers
12 February 2008(Apologies in advance to all those garden centre-loving readers)
I have never been keen on gardening but when the suggestion is made to go and visit a garden centre a cold shudder descends my being, I am filled with dread. I know I am not alone when it comes to this. Almost as soon as you arrive you quickly realise that there is another universe you didn’t know about, they have there own language, culture and customs. You spend hours walking up and down row after row of plants that are all grouped according their species, colour and type. Not to mention rows of garden gnomes and endless water fountains. Everything is neatly placed and organized with military precision.
You see my problem with this whole thing is this, it docent have much to do with a real garden! Gardens are in my opion an expression of life, beauty, passion and peace all living together. A place where you don’t feel it has been engineered but rather that something supernatural has taken place – Life and beauty!
It was on one of those painful visits to such a place that I started to see God’s intention for His Kingdom. You see we tend to do to church what we do to garden centers, we organize everything into boxes, neat and tidy no mess showing. Youth in one box, elderly in another, small group people in one area, river people in another, mega church people in another, pew jumping, devil shouting scary people at the back behind the sound desk!
It now makes sense to me why God didn’t give us a ‘pattern’ for church. You see if he had we would package it, make the DVD and send it out thinking we have it all wrapped up. Franchise may work for McDonalds but not for the Kingdom of God.
What’s needed to reach this world is true gardens that express the life of the Kingdom.
We need the old and the new, the large and the small, the Trans-local ministry, and the local. What we need is to honour all the expressions that God has graciously raised up. The Kingdom of God is not based around one pattern of church, its not based around a ‘way’ of doing church. Jesus didn’t come to reform Judaism or make the temple trendier, he came to introduce us to a new way of reaching the world… Christianity was to become ‘viral’. It was to constantly be changing so that is can effect the world, small enough to get under the defences of our culture, big enough to make an impact. It is supposed to constantly change its expression… The Kingdom is about LIFE, beauty, passion and peace, these are not patterns. The last thing Jesus wanted was for us to form another religion, he came to bring us life and freedom, he came to see gardens planted full of colour and diversity.
This world needs the Kingdom of God to break out. It needs to infect every area of life, schools, governments, sports clubs, business. We need fresh expression of church in every place in life.
If you are looking for a certain type of person to start a church stop now… God broke the mould when Jesus rose from the dead… No more boxes, no more patterns, people of all types, styles, colour and age deciding to make a difference.
A Garden for all
We live in a society that has totally bought into the philosophy that its all about the individual. Its all about ME. We walk around looking for the perfect garden to suit me. The garden where they play the songs I like, the garden where all my little shoots get looked after the way I like…We live in a individualistic world that interprets everything they read through the lens of ME.
People have a theology of ME, me getting to heaven, ME being blessed. Strange then that when it comes to sacrificing for others we struggle. When it comes to the Kingdom the 3 muskateers have it right… all for one and one for all! The Kingdom is not about me but about US. A great garden is not based around one persons likes but about the blending of everyone! A great family is not one made up of every getting their own way… it’s a place of diversity and unity.
We need to firstly start to see the Kingdom in terms of US and not ME, and then we need to learn what it is to lay our lives down for the sake of the Kingdom! This means getting out of the comfort boat and grabbing a spade and start digging! Or in this case we need to start PLANTING!
This year my prayer is that we will see a new bread of Christian, one who lives for the Kingdom, one who is willing to lay their life down for the sake of others, willing to pick up their cross and pioneer. Willing to say ‘God what expression of church do you want me to plant’, willing for the diversity of the Holy Spirit. We need to find that ‘viral’ form of the Kingdom again, let it get into society and bring about the change that we have been praying for.
Church planting is not about structure or wineskin or meetings or programmes, its about delivering the life of the Kingdom of God!
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