What I've Learned Through Suffering: Part 1 - The Need for the Church

On Monday, April 26th, 2010 I felt my heart physically break. A lump formed in my throat, my whole body went limp and I felt an overwhelming sense of dread as the ultrasound technician turned the monitor towards us and told us that she could not find a heartbeat for our unborn child. In an instant, our life forever changed. This wasn't the beginning of our suffering, however. We've been on a journey, as many of you reading this have, for the past few years of our life. Following God's call to plant a church meant a long, hard road of struggles and discipline by Jesus. Coupled with that came the death of my mother in October 2007, a marriage-long struggle with infertility, and now the loss of our second child, whose conception was a miracle in itself.

As Christians we were never promised an easy life. In fact, probably the least "named and claimed" promise of Jesus is John 16:33, "In this world you will have trouble." The truth is, most of us will suffer. The question is, will we learn to suffer well? John Piper, the famous author, pastor and Christian hero has said, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him...in the midst of loss, not prosperity" and "suffering is a beautiful hermeneutic." What I believe he means is that suffering is the lens through which we can best understand Scripture and the best context to be a witness to the world around us. In light of these thoughts, I have chosen to write a series of blogs entitled, "What I've learned through suffering."

This is part 1.

We planted a church for many reasons: God's direct call, our burden for our generation, the desire to redeem truth from a church culture that has thrown it out the window. But one of the greatest reasons is to be a part of the organism that Scripture calls the Church. Many of us have gone to church for years. We imagine that a church is a grand building built to somehow "house" God. Its a building we go to learn about Him, sing to Him, and respect Him by taking off our hats and keeping our chatter to a whisper while the anger dude in the pulpit tells us how to be more religious.

But a funny thing happens when we actually read Scripture and see what it says the church is and should be. The church is not a building at all but a group of people, who have surrendered their hearts and lives to Jesus...who are called out of darkness and into and are sent back into culture on Jesus' mission of redemption. The church is one Body made of many members who literally need each other to survive or made any impact in the world around them. The church gathers to hear teaching from Scripture, remember the Gospel together through communion and worship and enjoy fellowship that God uses to challenge and transform our lives.

What I have learned through suffering is that I need the church.

Just hours after we heard this great and horrible news, God used the church to bring healing to our hearts. Over the next 5 days, my inbox and cell phone were flooded with emails and text messages expressing a deep, deep love for my wife and I. There were no cliches. There were no attempts to fix things. There was no sympathy... but a vast and expansive empathy as our spiritual family literally wept with us. The truth was, many in our church community felt such a part of our lives that our loss was their loss. They gave us space to mourn and grieve and they gave us ears to share the pain in our hearts if we needed to speak.

Greater than all this... they prayed.

No, not the Christian cliche that we often give because we don't know what to say and just respond to others' hurt with "I'll be praying for you" but we never actually plead with our Father in their place. Our Christian friends and family prayed for us. They asked God to flood us with His presence and heal our hearts. And as we know, God is faithful to hear and answer prayers.

My heart is still healing over the loss of our baby. But my heart breaks again over the fact that many don't understand the great need that we have for the church. Some run from church because they don't want to be judged or found out. Others run from any form of authority or discipline. Others have scars that have never healed from those who have abused their position as a member in the body of Christ.

There is no greater place to undergo tragedy than in the close, honest, and caring fellowship of a gospel community. And there is no greater place for us to continually be reminded to take heart because He has overcome the world. God has given us this great gift of His bride as we sojourn toward eternity. I pray you would find a gospel-centered church.