Great thoughts here from Scot McKnight on the local church.

Ordinary small churches are the norm and the reality of church life, of kingdom-now life.

We have the ideal in our head, and lifted up as THE model for church, McKnight tries to burst that bubble.

As pastors we can even have our ideals:

Pastors smitten by the ideal of the church think more of themselves as prophets instead of pastors.

We need to keep it real. Pastors pastor. 

Could we get the hope of the ORDINARY church back into our vision?

The real church, then, is made up of ordinary Christians who are ordinary sinners.

And LESS of the “ideal?”

Those who are comfortable only with the ideal will settle for nothing less than conformity of all others in the congregation to their perception of the Christian life and church.

Help us, Lord, live in the reality of the Kingdom… mess and all.

My contention is this: if we will learn to expect less than our ideals we will discover the genuine more of fellowship and church life.

We don’t have all the answers. We won’t lob theological grenades at each other. We may even disagree, but are willing to talk it out.

Lord, please give us some reality!