I hope to see you in church

What an interesting day it has been.  Many discussions on a variety of topics, with a variety of view points that have left a jumble of thoughts bouncing around my somewhat hollow head.  Today I would like to lay something on you, that I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and insights. 

I have mentioned this before and will bring it up many more times in the future.  I am surrounded in youth ministry.  Jr. and Sr. High youth and how to better reach them with the message of salvation is a passion in my life.  Through this passion it has placed me in a culture that I really don't understand, and in many meetings with other in my shoes who understand as little as I. 

There are many views, ideas and strategies about how to "plug youth into the local church."  This is the topic of so many of my conversations, that I could wright a book simply titled "We Don't Really Have a Clue"   You see everyone says they want to get teens into church, but what they really mean is they want to get teens into their church. 

I have been wrestling with this idea of what church is, and what it is supposed to be.  There is a ridiculously large population of teens that have only set foot in church when their dad got married for the third time, or grandpa died.  We have a tendency to sit in our cozy religious buildings waiting for these youth who have no knowledge of God and no desire for God to come strolling in our doors and fill our pews with an active "youth program."

Every so often an organization rises up with the goal of reaching the lost with the saving message of the cross, a desire to mentor and disciple teens, and train them to live out their belief's through their actions.   All of a sudden it is grab the pitch fork and torches to go slay the beast that is "stealing" the teens from our churches!

My thought for today is simple, and allow me to phrase it as a question.  What and who is the "church?"  Is it not the body of Christ?  So if an organization is reaching the lost, and making disciples, isn't it part of the church?  And if it is part of the church, how in the world are they "stealing" youth from the church?

Let me encourage you to wrestle with this as I have been. Let me warn you it just may push us to where we are no longer comfortable, but I think it is worth some long hours pondering, and seeking out the Holy Spirit's guidance.  Is "the Church" our individual local churches, or is it the the Body of Christ as a whole?  And if it is the body as a whole, how far are you willing to go to grow "the Church?"