I had coffee with some friends the other day and we began talking about the unusual group which is called the Church. See we had been spending some time together and there was some pretty vulnerable moments as well as some moments filled with compassion and I remarked that I felt like I had just been to church (in a good way).

These moments of vulnerable confession, compassion, forgiveness, contemplation, and discussion are all things we long for and rarely get because they are driven by real, open, honest relationship. One hour on a Sunday morning does not cut it. It does not do it. Sunday morning is a fraction of what our life in Christ is to look like…not the whole thing.

The interesting thing about our time together was that afterward I felt like worshiping God and praying more. I wanted to talk to other people about what I had experienced. When we gather together in vulnerable openness to one-another genuinely seeking after God our desire to connect with others only grows. This is one of the main points of worship and the gathering of the faithful…not so that we can check off another task from our list of righteous requirements but that we would be filled to overflowing and then go and overflow into another’s life.

We chatted about the phenomenon we were experiencing and imagined a two-part skit to best demonstrate the value of gathering as Christians and the relational investment required over time. We imagined in part one of the skit the three of us sitting together having coffee. A sign is held up that says – These three just met. As we are enjoying coffee our conversation is one-dimensional, closed and awkward. It focuses on the weather. When asked how we are doing we respond with fine.

Part two of the skit has the same three people sitting for coffee again but this time the sign held up says four years later. The conversation is open and passionate. It is a discussion of the break down of one person’s marriage, the pain of doubt in another persons life and the struggle of parenting in another. There may be tears and laughter but what is absent are the typical walls. In this setting Saint Paul’s words to the Ephesians come to life as he declares Christ to have torn down the dividing wall of hostility…

Church is an empowered and compassionate gathering of Christians who become the very presence of Christ to one-another. The compelling, empowering, forgiving, loving, confessional, attractive, beautiful, compassionate and very real Christ in our midst. It happens as often as it can. It changes us and the people around us. It cannot help it.

I cannot stress enough the confessional nature of the church. Christ called us to confess our sins to one-another. This is no easy task but in doing so it creates a very compelling atmosphere, one that is vital to the role of the church and her identity as Christ’s body present now in the world.

There is an interesting phenomenon in your average community. There are people everywhere who fear, avoid and even hate your church. This makes absolutely no sense when you affirm and understand the church to be what Christ said it was and is – his presence in this place. So how is it then that increasing numbers of people fear and hate it (even some of those who attend)?

Part of the problem I believe is a lack of confession. Whether we intend it or not our church environments are often places where one enters and feels absolutely alone and unique in their struggles. People can look around and easily get the mistaken impression that everything and everyone is doing great. Everyone smiles politely, some are successful business owners, others have wonderful successful children and grandchildren, still others have phenomenal relationships and the pastors are paragons of faith and discipline. Some are wealthy and therefore must not have any real problems.

You are the only one struggling with your faith, with money, with love, sex and self-hatred, etc. Eventually you leave (or simply become bitter, or both). It is a lot like that first meeting between the three people only it never changes Sunday after Sunday, it is the same awkward conversation about the weather, work and sports or television programming.

This is hardly enough to cause fear though. It might cause in a person a desire to leave but how could it lead to fear and even hate?

Often when people live long enough with the myth that they are the only ones who struggle with a particular sin or brokenness they begin to actually start resenting and even hating others they discover have the same struggles. Sometimes they are even convinced a part of them is sinful that really isn’t but no one ever opened up with them and helped them discover the truth.

First they learn to hate themselves, then they learn to hate others. They become condemning and judgmental and hateful mostly because they condemn, judge and hate themselves. They have never seen confession modeled. No one has stood up in their community, swallowed their fear and said – “I feel I am losing my faith” or “I have been shoplifting for months now” etc. Their sense of isolation creates an atmosphere of condemnation (whether it is intended or not). Healing comes after confession – not before.

If we who strive to follow Christ can come to feel this way in our own sanctuaries how much more than do those we are called to evangelize feel this when they enter or come near?

The power of Christ’s love is magnified when people realize the kind of people he came to save…people just like them…people who need unrestrained forgiveness. When you come to realize that you are not alone in your suffering and need for a Saviour you find hope and a desire to share this community with others. Most importantly you learn to forgive yourself as Christ has forgiven you so that you can offer love and forgiveness to the world around you instead of cold, quiet, condemnation.

This is ultimately the key to the great commandment of Christ that we should love our neighbours as ourselves…we cannot love our neighbours if we do not love ourselves. We cannot forgive our neighbours if we do not forgive ourselves.

The power of a confessional community of faith is that it is radically, fearlessly, vulnerable and offers a kind of crazy compassionate forgiveness only Christ could offer. It is the kind of forgiveness born out of a sacrificial love that takes on death and wins.