I'm tired of Christians

I know, I know... no one wants to hear another frustrated Christian vent. It has lost its novelty on us all. But I have been re-invigorated by the post of a very bright mind out there among us (http://abandonimage.blogspot.com/2008/01/rapture-already-happened_11.html). My thanks and admiration to Tia, btw.

So, maybe we need to push thru the negative to get to the real point. Doesn't God allow us to live in the tension in order to bring us into the new?? So it would seem that all of us that are searching and bitching and listening to ourselves opine on the irrelevance of the modern Western church need to get off of our collective arses.

I don't believe that God is going to hear our bellyaching and say, "Oh... I guess I'll give in to their pouting and reveal the "new plan". Then they can arm-chair quarterback it and decide if it fits their ideals and get back to me with their suggestions and edits..."

I believe that the corporate frustration felt by those of us that feel disenfranchised from the corporate church is in fact labor pains. God is birthing something in us, and we need to not miss the fact that the best way to get thru the pushing is to focus on the joy to come.

While the church (little "c"...) may be on the endangered species list, the Bride is getting ready to be revealed. But the Bride belongs only to the Groom, and will not serve another. If we are to be that Bride, we must quit trying to get Heaven to bow to Earth. We must jettison our love for our systems and forms and lists and organizational methodologies. These are all Control. These link all the way back to our love for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. "If I can create a system, I can control my environment. Then I will be safe."

But God gets no joy working within our tiny methods. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that He doesn't work and move within the Institutional church. He does. I just don't think it's His favored environment. It is like a Father who is also a PhD-holding member of MENSA teaching in a nursery. He plays with the toddlers, engages in their micro-political schemes and games and hierarchies, stifling the condescension in his voice as they take themselves and their culture (that seems sooo relevant and compelling to a 3-year-old) way too seriously. His joy is in taking the opportunity to teach and play and mature them. But it is certainly his desire to see them move on out of the nursery some day.