I was talking with Kimo the other day and our conversation lead to the question of whether or not success kills any church that exists. He was telling me about his friend, JT, who is in the process of deciding if he should leave the church he’s in and begin something new. JT has run out of patience with the organized church and is pondering the idea, with some other friends, of beginning a group that will meet twice a month, or so, to visit a church and then sit around afterwards at lunch or over coffee and discuss the topic that day. This will be their new church; one where they don’t have to belong to a membership role and can avoid all of the structure and organizational junk that goes with a church.

I have another friend, who I remember as I write this, who wanted to start a congregational gathering of people that would meet each Sunday but never have a pastor. They would get together for worship and either invite someone in to speak or one of the immediate congregation would put something together for that day.

As Kimo and I talked we discussed that any group of people who would want to get together to worship God, if it is sincere and meets a spiritual need of others, would find themselves attracting other people and growing to where an organizational structure would be necessary. Success, in this case success means the authentic worship of God and the accepted invitation of others to join in, would require the same trap that we feel exists in churches today – organized structure that steals the life out of the heart of people.

I learned many years ago from my good friend Henry, that as people we put our everyday events and communications through a ‘filter’. This ‘filter’ was his word for the process of putting what we think and hear through our own minds and then breaking it all down so that we can make sense of it. He used this language a lot early on in Brenda’s and my counseling sessions before and after we were married. A common experience shared between Brenda and I would leave us with two different understandings of what took place. While to her it was taking a walk around the neighborhood with the possibility of seeing someone we might know, to me it was missing the Raiders football game, which aren’t aired very often in the Pittsburgh market. Neither perspective was right or wrong according to my good friend Henry, although I vehemently disagreed with him; it was just that we saw things differently and had to come together through proper communication. I suggested that the discussion take place during halftime and commercials.

We do this same type of filtering when it comes to church. Structure and organization are logical elements that address practical issues. Many times, when the worship of God is put through a logical filter, it loses its life, its emotion, its heart. Worship is something that is heartfelt – an emotional connection to God. The movies are full of chick-flicks that show this tension between heart and logic. (If the term “chick-flick” offends you, I would like to take this moment to thank you for allowing me to play such a huge role in your life that you would let something so minor be that big of deal.) The basic storyline of a chick-flick is to present a girl being torn between two options: one logical and one heartfelt. The logical option can be the guy that will be able to offer an immediate solution to her problems (although she generally feels no emotional connection with him), her job that will aid her ability to be an independent woman for the rest of her life, or some sort of life enhancing freedom. Each of the logical options comes with a certain sacrifice of life, emotion, and love. The second option is always THE guy, THE job, THE situation where our heroine (that’s the term for a female hero, not the narcotic) is able to finally feel free. This option requires a sacrifice as well, but the sacrifice is always found acceptable for the result of a fulfilled heart. In the church, worship is this second option. Worship must be heartfelt; authentic worship that fulfills the heart of God is worth sacrificing ourselves for.