But What About a Kitchenette?

Several years ago I shared an extended email conversation with a young Christian lady named Casey who had begun attending a Church of Christ in Ohio. She was both intrigued and disturbed by some of the things that she was learning. She really seemed to be serious and committed to Christ, but the more she learned about this church, the more confused she became. She ran across something I wrote on our web site, and so our email conversation began.

The particular “brand” of Church of Christ she was attending believed, among other things, that faithfulness and salvation depended on whether of not you have a kitchen in your church building. (We have two “kitchenette” areas, and I wondered if that sealed our doom or if we get a special dispensation for not fully falling into the sin of “kitchen-ism”). The more Casey learned about such peculiar church dogmas, the more concerned she was that she was hanging her spiritual hat on the wrong hook. She could not believe that anyone was going to hell because they had a kitchen, but she was not going to fit in at that church until she believed that.

What would you tell Casey? Here was an honest soul seeking God through Christ; she wanted more than anything to find group of Christians with whom she could share her spiritual journey. What she found was a Church of Christ that seemed to stress everything else except Christ. Here's what I told her--

The more time a church spends talking about itself and its ideas and why it is right, the less time it will spend talking about Jesus. A church focused on stamping out kitchens is not a Church of Christ; it is a Church of No-Kitchen. My best advice is to find a church that is obsessed with Christ, his cross and his empty tomb... and is not so obsessed with kitchens.

Maybe you would have responding differently. There was a time in my life when I would have responded differently. But the older I get the more I’m convinced that we earn the right to the name Church of Christ only as we find ourselves connected to Christ… not to the traditions, issues and feuds that have at times defined our past.