Location vs. Love
I have lived in:
Euless, TX ‘81 (1 home)
Hickory Hill, TN ‘81-’84 (1 home)
Germantown, TN ‘84-’91 (1 home)
Cordova, TN ‘91-’04 (3 homes)
Olive Branch, MS ‘04-’08 (2 homes)
Houston, TX ‘08-’11 (2 homes)
Pearl, MS ‘11-’15 (3 homes)
Cordova, TN ‘15-’18 (1 home)
Germantown, TN ‘18- present (1 home)
If you are keeping count, that is 9 cities (with two repeated) and 15 homes!!!!!
That is 3 homes in Texas, 5 homes in Mississippi, and 7 homes in the Memphis area.
Fortunately for me, I can claim Memphis, TN as my hometown. And just like a good Memphian, I can spot my people. You know someone is from Memphis when they, just after your initial introduction, ask you where you went to school. This isn’t the graduate or collegiate level they are asking about. It’s high school (and even sometimes you can answer with your elementary grade school and that works too). For many years I have wondered about this weird fascination of school location that Memphians seem to fixate on. Maybe we think that, by knowing, we can determine more about the person faster. “Oh . . . you went to Craigmont”. . . or . . . “Bolton Agricultural” . . . or - worse - the dreaded “MUS, ECS, or Braircrest.” I kid, I kid. But seriously…have you ever noticed this?
I have noticed this fixation on location in other areas. When people learn about Selah Memphis, they often first respond with the question of location. This isn’t necessarily a wrong thing or a right thing. This is intended to be a neutral statement but because I have a tendency to make neutral things priorities, and as the song says, “I am prone to wander”, we must be careful about attributing this to small talk. After spending a lot of my life with the Lord, I have started to have Spirit-filled “red flags” that have been going off around this fixation on the location of the church. Every solid pastor, minister and believer would say the church isn’t in the walls and buildings - it’s the people. But we still call the location “church” and talk about “going to church”. I believe that this is more than just a failure of the English language. We have settled to saying “amen” when someone makes the statement that it isn’t a building, it is the people, but that “amen” can only be found inside that building with those people. It’s often a building that we equated to revival when we raised the money for it but that is filled with people who we are not relationally transparent with.
I have many memories from all the homes I’ve listed above, minus the first one on the list. I recall being a kid, coming to Jesus, learning to drive, falling in love with Anne, coming home from our honeymoon, moving into new homes, bringing home babies, kids walking, talking and giving their lives to the King of Kings. I have lots of good memories in all of these places, but what I really love is my home now. I don’t want to go back. Sure, memory lane is fun but I don’t want to live on memory lane. And to be real, memory lane is founded in love not location. Along with all the great memories I listed above, there were a lot of hard times. We don’t walk those memory lanes often. We choose to walk memory lane with love as our lens. Jesus said this:
34-35 “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
Known by love. Identified by love. This is the command! But in all my depraved humanity I am tempted to think, “Let me find a house of love” or “ let me make a place of love”.
DON’T LET THE LIE SET IN.
DON’T JUSTIFY THE ACTIONS OF THE PREVIOUS YEARS.
LOOK NOW WITH NEW EYES AT THE COMMAND OF KING JESUS!
Location is never mentioned.
Does that make all churches with established, physical locations wrong? No, as long as love is the focus. By that I really mean that there isn’t something added or taken away from Jesus’ command to be known by love.
You may think, “Ryan, are you just the bitter church planter without a location…so thus this blog?” Nope. As I have said to our people, let us be identified by love before we move unto other things. Step one is still a work in progress, thus I will not be wrapped up with anything but love. I will not “progress” until we begin to see that supernatural love that we see in Acts. Paul puts it best:
4-7 Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
As a church, and personally as a pastor, we/I have made a commitment to continue to gather together in homes until we feel like the Father is satisfied with our love for one another and our love for others. Then the other things can take over but for now we must only focus on love that comes right out our intimate times with the Father.
So…
What’s the plan?
Where are you meeting?
The plan . . . is to create an intersection where messed up human in all their failures can live in community of love where they can pause, belong and respond.
The location . . . we meet on the corner of Intimacy with the Father pkwy, and Love for Others ave.