Rediscover The Church - Guest Blog - Peter Pollock

Peter Pollock, originally from England now lives in California where he serves as a pastor. I only know him online, but have found him to be one of the most encouraging guys!
I trust that you find encouragement & challenge in this post (i certainly have) and that you might find yourself checking out his blog in the future.

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God has put me on a journey.

My journey is all about rediscovering the Church.

Some years ago I began to get very frustrated with ‘the church’. It took a while, but eventually I realized that what I was really getting annoyed at was an institution – and the Church is not an institution. The Church is people - a big ugly, beautiful, arguing, peace loving, crazy group of individuals who are being woven together by God into a beautiful tapestry with a design that only he can see.


What we so often think of as the Church is the church (little 'c'). It's an institution, an organisation, a collection of rules, systems and beliefs which people affiliate with.


As I looked around me, I realised that I knew ‘the church’ and how it functioned and who did what but I didn’t know ‘the Church’, the people, my brothers and sisters.

When I started to get to know them, I discovered that they were all incredibly unique, talented and gifted - way beyond anything that I had previously understood.

Many of them were also trapped by the institution, unable to find a way to set free the gifts that God had given them, unable to be themselves. They were forced to try to squeeze into a mold that they were not created to fit into.

My desire is that we, the Church, undo the chains that tie all of us down and allow ourselves to be what God has made us to be.

As I started out, I began to want to chronicle this journey. To do this, I started to blog as a way to share my experiences and learn from others. It was only when I started blogging and reading other people's blogs that my eyes were truly opened to the incredible diversity within God’s Church.

I began to listen to, connect with and learn from people who, even on this journey, my prejudices would have kept me from connecting with. This truly opened my eyes to see the wonderful ways that God works in and through people to accomplish his will.

Gary is one of the people I have met through the wonders of the internet and the world of blogging. He’s probably not one of the weirdest that I have ever met but he is certainly one who is so geographically distant from me that it is highly unlikely our paths would ever have crossed otherwise.

I am so grateful that God has placed him in this world. He is a unique and amazing creation of my heavenly father and I am enjoying getting to know him a little and learning from what he is learning and sharing.

Today, I want to encourage you to look at the Church in a new way, in a new light. Don’t look at their faults and find reasons to not like them or disagree with them. I assure you, you will find reasons to disagree with everyone. Instead, look at what God is doing in them and through them. Look at their hearts and see the refining process in action. Look at their gifts and see the huge potential that God has built into each of us.

In doing so, you will begin to see just a small glimpse of this beautiful picture that God is painting across time and space, a picture of grace and love and salvation which includes every one of us.


Why not rediscover the Church with me?


Romans 12:18 “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”

John 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."




Website: PeterPollock.com
Twitter: @PeterPollock
Blog: http://worship247.org/webmail/redir.php?http://blog.hafchurch.org/peter