I find it strange that we, as Christians, will spend our whole lives walking in and out of hall ways that are covered with pictures of Biblical situations and themes and yet we never actually get what we are seeing. We will sit for hours of our lives and hear from the word of God and yet never act upon what we hear. We will sing songs to a supreme being and yet our praises are typically in vain. We will even read this supposed book that is to change our lives and then lay it aside to read a non inspired person's view on the book. I have wondered for years about why we do these things and have come to a conclusion. A conclusion that is debatable and may even be wrong. For now, it is all I have.
I believe there are three basic reasons that we miss the whole purpose of Christ and this movement known as Christianity. The firs reason is that we have forgot what is our authority. Right now most people who are reading this have already decided in their brains what they believe to be the ultimate authority. Some may say God, others the Bible and many would say Christ. Any one in favor of God? I am. Many people have forgotten how the whole authority thing works. It goes simply like this, God is our authority and we learn of this through His word which teaches us about Christ who is the one who, through his death on the cross, now offers grace. I know, that is a mouth full but they all work together. The Bible and Christ are both under the authority of God. I know there is much more to discuss in this area. I do not have time to go into detail. If you have a problem with this thought process, read the whole book of Hebrews.
Now, let me explain briefly what I think has happened in modern Christianity. The modern church is so hell bent on being the one in control that it searches for its authority in the people and not God. Churches will cater all things to the people. Churches want to please people and keep them drugged. The modern church desires not to please the supreme being who created them but they would rather opt to not offend people with all that supposed nonsense. Don't believe me? Let me give an example. Most churches that are considered contemporary are more focused on worship than the teaching of the word of God. Now, in thought, this is not necessarily a bad thing but look deeper. People in the modern church judge the effective ability of the church by its worship style and how they feel after worship. They are not concerned with that God is teaching or doing but just want a simple high and then they know everything is otay. This is not what the authority over all intended for the church. We have forgotten whom we are worshiping. If God is the sole authority of your life, should not church be completely centered and about God? Just a thought.
The second problem I see is that we have completely lost all focus. The church is more about the mechanical functionality and the programs we produce, notice the the, "We." It seems that we go about our rigorous study of God's word because we have always done that. It seems that we do not study to show ourselves approved but we study because that is what churches do. I do not think that just because some function is completed it makes it useful. Want an example? Look at the gizmos and gadgets that come out on infomercials. Half of the things produced are junk and yet, functionally, they work....most of the time. What am I saying? Merely that we have become a shiny robot that moves because of a program. We are not a living breathing body that sometimes is cut and actually shows scars. I fear that we have decided that rose colored classes are better than the blurred vision of reality. Why does this occur? I would love to share. This problem occurs because in our functions we are safe and secure. We find hope not in an immortal being that saves but in the company of our programmed chaos. All long as the wheel spins we don't have to worry. This belief leads to small groups of people that are all the same. If we dropped the functions and programs we may have to rely on someone other than ourselves. We may have to get dirty and we may have to work at it, we may have to rely on God.
The final problem, and this one irritates me, is that we would rather be entertained than taught. Church has become a three ring circus that has to continually re-invent the scary tigers and bears. I understand being relevant but if the word of God is meant for all people in all times then it does not need monkeys doing high wire acts to make it such. What do I mean, we will do 45 minutes of videos, use modern slogans and borrow from culture to make ourselves relevant to the people. O how many sermon titles will have super bowl themes and how many will have something with an Ipod like theme. I am not saying these are bad, although I fear we have lost a
ll creativity when we borrow everything. What I am saying is that cute slogans are not teaching. Why can we not teach the depths of scripture and show that God's word always has a place. There are so many things that are not taught. The Bible contains volumes of intelligent conversation that we are afraid of boring the people with. I myself sometimes tend to use humor because I don't want to bore my students away. Why do I fear this, because I too fight this battle of relevancy. To sum it all up, we adopt to be cute clowns over professors because as long as the crowd is happy and we say something nice, they might learn. I propose another idea...how about we teach and those who want it will come and those who don't, weren't learning anyways.Okay, okay, I know this has been long. I just needed to get that out. I pray it all makes sense and gives us something to talk about.
