A Very Good Bake

Toilet paper hasn’t been only thing in high demand during COVID-19. Try walking down the baking aisle looking for flour, sugar or yeast.

I asked a grocer, “Is there any other place in the store where I can find yeast?”

“Nope, sorry, we sold out our whole supply in 3 hours. I guess everyone is baking and making cookies.” he said. Granted, I’ve been on a quest to bake the perfect sourdough loaf but lacked the simple ingredients to do it right. The flour, salt, water are important, but the signature ingredient is a sourdough starter—a prized possession amidst real bakers, which I am not, but I have connections. A friend gave me small healthy dollop of starter and so it began. You’ve heard the saying, “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf.” Indeed, it does.

Jen and I watch The Great British Baking Show and I’ve become curiously addicted. In one exercise, the bakers are given a challenge. The judges, expert bakers themselves, give a description of what they’re looking for. Each contestant is given the same ingredients, the same amount of time, the same workplace and recipe, but sometimes without exact measurements, baking times or temperatures. These are to be deduced from the bakers’ experience. To win the competition and be crowned “star baker," they must create something pleasing to the eye and delicious to the taste. 

Kind of reminds me of that scene in Apollo 13 where the scientists on earth were charged with creating an air filter fix for the astronauts in space, with only the materials that were in the space capsule itself. High drama with real consequences. It’s those creative individual efforts, the triumphs and flops of process, that make for the addictive storylines. 

When the bakers on the show present to the judges, they’ve tried to recreate what they saw in their mind, but the judges get the final say and they know what they’re looking for. They take a knife to each, making sure the inside matches the presentation on the outside. All are subject to the sniff, cut, and taste test. 

Their evaluation is the climax of the show, often saying, “This was a very good bake, this was under-baked, this needed more proving, these flavors work wonderfully, or this is rather bland.” The bakers’ faces say it all. Anxious expressions make for good evening television.

When talking to friends recently about what the Church of Jesus Christ is supposed to look like, this analogy of The Great British Baking Show popped to mind.

I’ve known many who’ve grown up in religious settings and find themselves thinking, “Is this all there is?” Most think that the church they see is the way it’s supposed to be. But if you run into another expression of the Church powerfully loving God, it makes you wonder. 

So, who’s right? The Catholics, the Protestants, or the thousands of denominations that have spread across the religious landscape? Do the Jewish believers have it right? After all, they heard what Jesus first spoke. What gathering, what system, what ecclesia, what Church did Jesus have in mind when he said to Peter that on this rock, He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it? Where is it? I want to be on that team, in that church. What does it look like? 

When you search the scripture, you don’t find a blueprint for building the structural system of church. What are the main and plain ingredients? There are clear implications of gathering together, prayer, fellowship, worship, teaching, serving one another and others, but no real construct of best practices. They relied on the ancient instructions of scripture, the leading of Holy Spirit, and the faithful example of elders following Jesus. These combined efforts led them into all truth, that when they gathered, each was to bring what God had given him, their talent, their song, their gifts, their time. It fit more in the model of “Freely you have received, now freely give.” That seemed to be their model and the Church grew exponentially from house to house, region to region. 

The experience of the church has a different kind of expression in each culture and generation. The grace of God sustains it and encourages its growth, without ever stating exactly what it’s to look like, or how it is to specifically to function, though the simple ingredients provide rough proof of what it should taste like. It takes a generation to build, and eventually a Judge will evaluate it, at the end of things. 

The church looks a bit different than it did in my parents’ day, and it will definitely look different in the days of my children. And I hope it looks different in these days, as moves for reopening are rolling out. 

The ingredients are the same, the directions need some interpretation, but there is definitely a time of combining and baking before presenting to the Judge, who slices with His sword of truth to see how our life has proved. 

I wonder how He will find the Church in this generation proving? I wonder how He finds the Church that is in me?