They’re Painting All The Churches Gray?

They were outside painting. Spraying dark, the white steeple that had pointed to the sky, often cumulus clouds floating above it…

Bright rays of unfamiliar sun, shooting through that steeple…In this region, known very well for its cynicism and darkness.

It was the second church in a week I had seen, painted dark over its sparkling, well kept, perfect white.

Dark grey? No, not a trendy, beautiful hew of silver…But a dark, matted, ugly gray.

Why did they do it?

Was it a prophetic unspoken message of the state of our region? A declaration of the ugliness that has tainted the Pacific Northwest…

A reflection of the hearts of God’s people?

Are we gray? Hiding or blending? Shrinking back or fading in?

What happened to His cry for holiness? His call that all would be as fallen snow? His promise that His Bride would be as pure white, when He comes on the clouds once again?

I see all the faces pass my screen. Desperate hearts aching for platforms, positions, purpose or recognition. Where have we all gone wrong?

And I can’t help it…But recently, my heart longs for simpler days.

Kick Ball on the corner where four blocks would meet. Strangers gathering, children laughing in innocence at nothing in particular…

Picnics in the park. Relationships where people talk. And don’t yell, or hold screens in front of them. Zombies posing, like addicts, just to feel something.

A lost culture needing substances to survive.

Are we actually even alive? Or has the world gone gray? Gray like those churches? Changed in a day…

Once white. Radiant. Visible on a hill for all to see.

Now, somehow ashamed? Hiding? Pretending to a be a community gathering place…But gray as to never offend?

Did Jesus offend? Did Jesus compromise His perfect purpose? His original design? His born unto destiny plan to bring life to those that most need it?

And yet, we hide. Hide behind anything we can find. An image. A “brand”. A title.

God forgive us.

We are often busy making others believe we are someone important…Instead of pointing to the only Holy one who is.

And when did we sell our souls, our birthright, for a bowl of soup this world continually offers us?

When did we lay down the high call? The unashamed victory that God has given us….Just so we can fit in?

When did we turn from an All Supreme Master who woo’s us with passion and purpose and Scripture that truly lives…

Forsaking what is our every breath….for a screen of empty images of strangers we’ve never met?

Has the world become so shallow, that we have forgotten that all of life; each high, each low, each moment, each interaction…A gift?

To brush your hands across a field of wheat. To have our skin be heated by the beating sun, soothing us with heavenly radiance. To embrace another, living, breathing human in our arms with a warmth that vibrates pure love.

To hear a child laugh, throw their head back and belly laugh until the earth around them cracks wide open and joins them in joyousness, willingly.

Why have we been painted so willingly, with fear? Like that dark gray layer reprimanding that steeple? Demanding we be muted? Lessening our vibrance, almost willingly compromising?

Weren’t we made to shine? To rise up in the sky? Stand upon that hill? Shout, like that church bell that once belted out unapologetically, for the world to hear…

Now, dangling ashamed from an almost black church, shrinking from it’s purpose.

Should we be ashamed of our gong? Try to fit in more? Fold up the book that says, “Why have a building? Community is what we make it!”

Or is it somehow….And do I dare even say this…

But, could it even be our fault?

You know, the people themselves that have come as the church, who have bled our dark lives onto God’s white temple?

Could we be the ones responsible for pushing people away from the bride? Longing for grandiose, self-importance instead of selflessness and servitude?

Have we loved titles more than humility? Our own fame and club -like atmosphere, more than loving the poor, offering others grace and giving instead of receiving?

And how often has the church let scoundrels ravish the church in secret? Pastors and leaders, who ensure us they are “somebody”, bewilderingly leaving us with their lies…

Tainting our eyes and our hearts with confusion and chaos? Making far too many, “twice sons of perdition”, than if we’d never even known them?

Yes, isn’t the church meant to be free? Without walls? A place where humility is the glue that keeps people grounded and holy?

And yet, the building, the place of God’s people gathering, has always been significant. Two or more gathered together. Congregating. Assembling.

Saints coming in repentance, offering a perfect God our gray paint in exchange for the stroke of His hand to coat us in His glory.

Downing our outsides, seeping into our hearts, like oil dripping down the beard of Aaron…

Set on fire for a God who became bloodied and scared for an unbearable wretch, like us.

Or have we forgotten we are imperfect? Sinners? Saved by grace? And by the mercy of a loving God, He took us from the mud and mirk and created us in His image.

Holy, because He is holy. Made righteous, because He is righteous. Redeemed, because He alone is our sanctifying substitute that turns filthy rags into something beautiful.

A cross still stands on the hill, pointing to the sky. Sun begs through the cloud covered sky, to come through….To make it’s way to the muddied earth that insists it has found its own way.

Redeeming itself through pop culture and reels that give us 30 seconds of so-called “wisdom” and “insightful psychology”?

Have we talked ourselves out of a Savior?

Have we run from a building that once was white, and found the fields of the world greener? A screen filled with unthreatening people…

More beautiful than the cross?

Still, of one thing I am absolutely sure of is…

In this gray culture, gray world….God still loves the church. He battles for it. His angels stand over it. His promises are connected to it.

And if we can redeem the church in our own hearts first…maybe…just maybe…The church on the hill will rise in our own weary neighborhoods.

Then together, we can stand bold and unshaken, on the promises of God.

Fastened to Scripture, we can then, represent Him well. And His power and glory will beam and radiate through every stained glass we see…

Sitting in the pew, like you and me.

And though cracked and broken. Put together as an emblem of radiant imperfection…

Maybe the world can still see Christ through us.

And those painters in black that have been filling the cities, painting the church all gray…

Will lay down their brushes.

His church will burn bright and white, and with true holiness once again.

And the bride will alure her King.

Oh come, holy King of Glory.