A Recovery Culture Church (Part 2)

“In most churches I don’t really feel welcome.” It was an incredibly sad, if not uncommon, statement. Bill (not his real name), whom I was speaking with is a sincerely nice guy; he was also a recovering addict with a prison record. His tattoos all had stories. “This one is a reminder of my mom’s death.” “This rose is for my daughter…I don’t get to see her anymore.” “This one is from the best rock album ever!” Admittedly they weren’t all good stories, but they were part of his life. But it was precisely because of his story that he felt so unwelcomed in most churches in our area. His story, of course, matters to Jesus and churches that follow in the footsteps of their savior welcome his story too. Recovery-culture churches are safe places where all stories are welcomed.

In much of modern Evangelicalism we have tamed the gospel, domesticated it. The gospel is family friendly. It’s about how much God loves us and how he “saved us.” Rarely, however, do we explain what God has saved us from and what he has saved us too. Salvation is a messy, terrifying, and gritty reality. The gospel is not family-friendly in the way that most traditional conservative Christians use the term.

The gospel says that we were rebels, traitors, insurgents against the almighty and holy God of the universe. As a result of our rebellion we suffered the consequences of sin. God letting us reap what we sow. For some of us that means self-righteous lives but for others it means cycles of very graphic and visible self-destruction. Regardless of where we fall in that spectrum, however, all sin is ugly to God. Whether we are white supremacists, greedy consumers, arrogant elitists, drug-addicts, rapists, or just disobedient children, God finds all our sins disgusting. As a result he is read to pour out his wrath upon us, to consume us in his holy fire, to tread us under foot and crush us (Isaiah 63:3). This is a terrifying picture. The wrath of God, the fury of hell, and the reality of our blackened hearts are not safe, not domesticated topics. They are awful topics that strike us as impolite and improper in civilized society. But such are the topics God communicates to us, such topics are part of the gospel story.

The gospel story too includes the bloody, horrific, murder of the innocent Son of God. At the heart of the gospel is a violent and brutal death. Jesus’s death for our sins, the shedding of his blood, the crucifixion itself is not safe. On the most horrific of stages Jesus declares that sinners are worthy of damnation, but that he loves them enough to secure their freedom. His agony and torture are real. His encounter with the very wrath of God that we deserve is key to the gospel. We have domesticated the cross, wearing it on our t-shirts and around our necks. But we must see it clearly as the torture of an innocent man, the death of the Son of God, and the ruthless means of our salvation. The cross is not family-friendly, but it is the heart of our gospel.

If this is part of the story we tell then why do so many churches seem to suggest by their culture that some stories are simply not sanitary enough to be welcomed within the fold? I don’t believe that it is intentional, but nonetheless churches have adopted a practice of acknowledging some sins are more respectable than others. Do you struggle with love of money? That okay you are welcome here. Do you struggle with anger? Grab a seat. Do you have a food addiction? That might not even be a sin! We have culturally accepted sins within the church. But if you struggle with cocaine, you can’t sit in our pew. If you molested someone you then you need to find another church. Have you got a prison record? I am going to be keeping my eye on you!  But if we look closely at the life and ministry of Jesus we will see that our church cultures don’t mesh well with his.

Jesus, in his earthly life, loved the sick. In fact he was often challenged by the religious leaders for being a “friend of sinners.” Jesus knew and loved prostitutes, political traitors, lepers, and social pariahs. Tim Keller has powerfully highlighted the distinction between Jesus and many modern Evangelical churches. He writes:

In every case where Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (as in Luke 7) or a religious person and a racial outcast (as in John 3-4) or a religious person and a political outcast (as in Luke 19), the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the elder-brother type does not. Jesus says to the respectable religious leaders “the tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you” (Matthew 21:31)…

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. (Prodigal God, 15-16)

Jesus was a friend to sinners. We must evaluate ourselves and our churches and ask if the same thing would be said of us. I wonder if the list of sins from which the Corinthians were recovering would be found among our churches. Paul writes:

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous^[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,^[c] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

If such stories are not found among our congregations we ought to pause and wonder why.

A Recovery-culture church is a church that does not have respectable sins. All sins are sick and disgusting and worthy of hell. And so a recovery culture church is honest about that reality and therefore welcoming to all stories. The guy with an addiction to meth and the woman with an addiction to anger both need help! Both are welcome. Both are loved. This can be messy and complicated, no doubt, but so is our gospel.

Recovery culture churches are not always family-friendly, but they are always gospel-friendly. I am glad that Bill found a church that knew the difference.