A Grammar Lesson

AA grammar lesson? Ick! I confess that I never learned the myriad of carefully recited grammar rules at school. That is due to the fact that my parents spoke using correct grammar and expected their children to do the same. So when it came time to make the correct multiple choice selections on the grammar test at school, I just read the sentence and selected the word that I would naturally say. Now I did memorize “i before e except after c”, but that is Spelling, and a whole different story…(…she said after silently being thankful for the ever-present computer spell checker.) …but back to grammar.

The United Methodist Church is engaged in a new thought process of what it means to be Christ’s church. This “program”, for lack of a better word, is called Rethink Church and challenges us to re-evaluate how we think, what we do, and what we DON’T do as members of the United Methodist Church (UMC).

The word “church” was originally used to mean the people, the followers of Christ. These faithful Christians gathered together on Sundays to worship in homes and wherever they could. Eventually buildings were build specifically for that time of gathering and worship, and the buildings gained the designation “church”. The word “church” moved from a noun, describing people, to a noun, describing a building. This redefinition has been the focus of many sermons and Sunday school lessons that try to bring the people back around to the understanding that we are the “church”, the body of Christ who is to be in active ministry, together.

With the advent of Rethink Church, another redefinition comes forward. The UMC has put out a series of videos and materials to explain this in more detail. One of the main challenges made is rethinking “church”, and moving from is solely as a noun, and recreating it to be an ACTIVE verb. Church then becomes less about where you go, or a label to wear, and more about what you are actively doing. The runner runs. The cook cooks. The church churches, which means the “church” (Christ followers) “churches” (behaves like Christ).

If we the Christ followers are behaving like Christ, then our complete lifestyle is filled with thoughts, words, and deeds that come together to constantly show our love to God and to the others around us.

One video states, “What if we rethink church? What if church was less about Sunday, and more about the other days of the week? What if church wasn’t just a place we go but something we do?” Instead of taking the TV remote for its nightly spin tonight, perhaps you might consider going to the UMC’s YouTube channel to discover more about this concept. There are plenty of heart-grabbing and challenging mini-movies (each of them under 10 minutes and some just minutes long) that may spark something new within you. Watching some are so great that you want to share them with someone else… kinda like evangelism… but I’ll save that for another time.