Here is the Church, Here is the Steeple...

Here is the church

Here is the steeple

Open the doors

And see all the people.

It's a childhood finger rhyme that takes me back more than a couple dozen years. Pudgy fingers wrangling to point and intertwine and form the church in the way it was intended. Little fingers representing people, working together, pushing against each other, wrapping around each other, interlocking, and being the church only because all of the people-parts are working together for the One True Glory.

When the people of the right hand and the people of the left hand don't work together, the church falls into a mass of tangled finger people. And when the hands are flailing ghost-like in the air, seemingly attached to nothing, the church flounders. Gasps a few agonal breaths, then dies.

Our church has recently been divided by, of all things, the governing body of it's denomination. A vote was cast where nobody wins.

Not God. Not us.

Yet we still yearn to open the doors and see all the people. Together.

We are confused, broken, struggling finger-people who were bound together by the love of Christ for decades, and are now torn apart by the very entity that was intended to bring us together.

I have one request today - will you pray for my church?

This post is a part of the "One Word at a Time" Blog Carnival hosted by Bridget Chumbley. Stop by and visit other contributions on "church." And bring some kleenex - she's got herself a bit of the flu this week.

Tea today: Tazo Joy
Image: PhotoBucket