choich

i continue to be amazed by the body of christ. sometimes it seems so repulsive...like there's no way anyone would want to enter in to christianity if it looks the way that some churches and christians do. i am not making sweeping statements, encompassing certain denominations. i mean actual individual churches i've been to in the past. sick churches. too many that look shiny and happy on the outside--but like those barns you see out in the country that are practically tumbling over. the new coat of paint slapped on top doesn't stop the decay. (sometimes the new coat of paint is being "confessional"--which is twisted. people get props for airing out their dirty laundry, but no one helps them clean it up.) but it's not always like that. there seem to be really healthy churches too. these people welcome you, they feel comfortable, they discourage cliques and encourage participation from may corners. we seem to have stumbled on one of the healthier ones. not perfect, of course. but a breath of fresh air. you can be yourself with these people. they like you for you--not for what you do for them. and they're not afraid to stretch out and do new things. b was hired on as a part-time youth director at our church, even though we just became members two weeks ago. this is the first youth director that they've ever had. and the way the hiring went was so great. the head administrator called her up to make b aware of the position. during our interview with the elders of the church to become members, she (paula, the administrator) had written down a bunch of b's personality traits. the elders had been praying for a youth director for years, they said, but the right person hadn't come along. when they got together after we talked with them about joining the church and paula brought out her notes, they all unanimously agreed that b was the person they'd been looking for. she went through three more interviews, with pastors, elders, and with parents of some of the youth in the church. there wasn't any pressure, no insistence that she go through training to conform with the particular doctrines of the denomination. they just prayed with her and for her for about two weeks. then they called her up and offered her the job. i'm not doing justice to the process but writing about it like this. what i'm trying to convey is that it seemed perfect. it seemed to be exactly the way a church should go about the hiring process. and for some reason the hiring practices of a church seem to be significant in getting at what's going on underneath the surface at that church. it's not an obviously "spiritual" thing, hiring. it would be easy to treat it the way any company treats it. but they didn't do it that way. it sounds cheezy, but they actually "ministered" to us through the hiring process. that seems like one of those small indicators of a really healthy church.