The Beauty and Necessity of Patchwork Church

Derek Webb wrote this article for Radiate Magazine and posted it on his website. I agree so wholeheartedly with everything here that I'm just going to post it in its enitrety. Maybe I'll comment later.


A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It's not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts.
But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.
1 Corinthians 12:14-18, 29-31 (MSG)


As members of one body, the Church, we’re all in the process of discovering what our gifts are and how we might use them in the work of extending God’s kingdom and the encouraging Christ’s Body. This is much easier said than done. One of the jobs of Radiate Magazine is to “(expose) the schemes and the systematic intimidation of God’s people by our enemy. (To) break down the boundaries of “Christian” thought to reveal the bigger picture of God’s plan and interaction in all areas of life.” I believe our enemy is working most urgently not in the music of Eminem and advertisements for beer as much as he is trying to convince us, the Church, of the great and debilitating lie of modern Christian culture: We are all exactly the same.

That is to say, we all have the same gifts, the same preferences, the same callings, and the same convictions. And we’re told this lie from our radio stations, our youth groups, our college bible studies, and our pulpits. We’re made to feel bad or somehow unequipped for God’s work if we can’t rise to the occasion like our more outgoing friends, demonstrating the “craziness” and abundant joy of the Christian life. We’re told by our culture that the qualifications for being a zealous believer in Jesus include listening to Christian music, modeling constant happiness and excitement for the watching world, going on at least one annual international missions trip, and if we have musical abilities that we join a local praise and worship band. Now before I lose you, know that I believe all of these things to be right and righteous pursuits for a follower of Jesus. While we should certainly strive to improve in areas where we are weak, there can be danger in believing and perpetuating the idea that all of God’s people can equally do all of these things.

As we are told above in 1 Corinthians 12 (unfortunately there isn’t room for the whole chapter-also see Romans 12), God has in Christ made us one body with many members, but not members with the same function. We belong to each other and need each other precisely because we are so different. We clearly do not have the same talents or passions or convictions. In fact, we’re told that once we discover what our particular gifts are that we should essentially stay out of each other’s (respective) business. If I have gifts to teach, I should stick to teaching and not frustrate the leadership of my church by trying to govern. Because of my own issues with control I would LOVE to be in a position to boss people around, but the Lord simply hasn’t gifted me in that way (and in His infinite wisdom, that’s probably why).

All of this is to say, we should be in the business of encouraging one another to press on in the work that the Lord has given us, regardless of how different that work is. As an artist, I’m especially sensitive to the double standard so often imposed on the Church’s artists. At some point in very recent church history, someone came up with the idea that if your art is not explicit then it is not useful or good. Yet at the same time, members of the Church with gifts that don’t require such self-expression and not required to make blatant confessions of faith every time they do their work in order to be justified in doing it.

And I don’t think artists are the only ones who are feeling this. We have men who have great gifts in administration and management who are convinced that their talents are wasted in the corporate world. They would be of more use in “full-time ministry” and on the staff of a church. While this is something they may prayerfully consider we must also encourage them that they may be right where the Lord wants them. How will do we ever expect to be a redemptive influence, to be ‘salt and light,’ in the worlds of secular business and art if we refuse to engage in them? Can God only use “Christian” labeled music? As a church community we must begin dismantling the idea that something must have a “Christian” label on it to be of use to God. I have personally seen Godly men and women sent out into hard areas of culture in order to get in on the bigger worldview discussions that are going on in our modern day ‘synagogues and market places.’

I had a remarkable experience at this year’s GMA conference in Nashville, TN. While participating in a press conference with fellow label-mates Sara Groves and Anthony Evans, we were asked to talk about what we believed to be our respective roles in kingdom work. It was interesting how different our answers were. While we were all concerned with the building of God’s kingdom, we realized that He was positioning us in very different ways because of the different gifts that He has given us, and all of them necessary to accomplish His will.

This is what the Church looks like. Some are better equipped to weep with the broken and some to rejoice with the joyful. You are not called or expected to do both well. The Church needs you for your specific gifts, and those may not look like anyone else’s. Above all, this will require a diverse people who are not only willing to be different, but who celebrate the difficulty of living together as God’s patchwork Church.