Organic churches are shaped by the people who are there.

The other day I was meeting with some other pastors and one of them was saying that most of the folks in his congregation had a task to do. They were ushers. They set up the food. They gave the announcements. They were the church. If they weren’t there, church wouldn’t happen. Which meant everyone had to attend because they knew whether they were there or not mattered.

Most of us are used to going to a church where you mattered, at least in part, because you had a role to play, a job to do. Now this isn’t evil or anything. But it is different from life at ThPM. At ThPM, we don’t have a lot of tasks and we don’t need a lot of volunteers. People don’t matter because they have a job to fill, but because they have a life to offer. And I guess that becomes their job, to let us eavesdrop on their lives a bit. Here, we influence things not so much by the jobs we do or the programs we run, but by the people we are.

So what does this mean? It means you show me God.

Moses used to see God. In Exodus 33-34 there’s this insane story where he basically climbs up a volcano and sits down to take shorthand for God. While he’s there Moses asks, “Please let me see you glory.” (Like the fact that he was surviving a volcano and having a little sit-down with God wasn’t enough!) God didn’t show Moses his face though. That would have been too much for poor old Moses. So God just showed him his backside. He showed him his ass. (This pretty much cracks me up.) Even then God had to shove Moses behind a rock and cover him up to keep him from…what…imploding? I suppose I can be as flippant as I’d like about God giving Moses a BA and all, but even as I laugh away it still comes down to this — even being near God’s butt was so powerful that Moses was changed. That’s pretty damn insane, you know? I mean, the man came down off the mountain and walked around camp with his face glowing! This freaked the people out. They couldn’t handle it. They made him wear a veil.

So I’m reading this story and I start thinking that the incarnation is such a tremendous act of mercy. I mean, sure it saves us in some grand eschatological cosmic -justice sort of way. I’m not pooh-poohing that in any way. But there’s another act of mercy in there too. When God became a man, he found a way to put all that glory and God-ness inside a person. And then, when Jesus died and came back, somehow God used that to put himself inside of this person – inside of me, inside of you. That’s what we say, isn’t it? “Inviting Jesus into our hearts.” “Being the body of Christ.” “Holy Spirit, come and fill me up.” Living the incarnational life means walking around with God in jars of clay, in chipped up coffee mugs. We are a bit broken, yes, but Jesus shines through the cracks. When we turn to face each other, we can see God. It isn’t as powerful as seeing his face, maybe not even as powerful as his backside. But it seeps out – all that God glory, all those Jesus-y moments, all that him stuff that’s also us stuff now.. Look, when we see that in each other, it must change us. Just like seeing God changes Moses, only in a slight more diluted way.

When Bethany tells stories about learning to accept generosity from others, and learning to share generosity with others – that touches me. When Iz and Em talk about how they’ve figured out how to make their careers, dreams and finances mesh – that inspires me. When Matt reads some far-out piece of sci-fi that expands my ideas about God – that changes me. When you are there you shape me – we shape each other. In church-speak this is called discipling. It doesn’t look much like discipling as we’ve known it. No one is following a workbook, or meeting with a mentor, or systematically working through Timothy. What we are doing is very basic, and very meaningful. We are simply taking our God-shaped lives and turning them around to face one another. When you show me yourself, you show me God.

I want to know God in any form he chooses to reveal himself, including as God-in-you. We each hold a fistful of God. I want to be shaped by the bits of him that show through you. This isn’t transformation though a discipleship program, or an Adult Sunday School class, or even a sermon series. (Although all of those things can be helpful too.) This is organic discipling – life change through being present to one another. This is “you show me mine and I’ll show you yours.” This is God shining through the cracks.

That’s why it matters if you are here.