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.
7 comments:
I agree completely Josh. The Word of God and Christ all are under the authority of God. The book of Hebrews and the first Chapter of John tells us this in plain view. Here's the question I ask. What should I do to try and move past this seemingly robotic type situation we have in church? I believe personally that I should fix myself and not try to worry about others' lives. Me griping at everyone else won't help, but if I will follow God and grow and begin to live a true life for Christ, I believe that it will spread. Maybe this is the wrong approach to it, but I'm tired of us always doing these huge "come to Jesus" things when we want everything done. We get in such a hurry to make God do what we want that nothing works. Why? Because God is our authority, not the other way around. I think we should start to truly listen to what God has to say, instead of picking what we like to hear. Truth is, God is normally going to tell us things we don't want to hear. We do the same thing when we read the Word. We read it, and then throw out the parts we don't like, and preachers preach their own doctrine and not the Bible. I'm personally not interested in doctrine. I'm interested in the Word of God, in it's entirety, no sugarcoating, and teddybear free. I think if we would all begin to move past this "I don't know if I can do that" attitude, and realize that in reality we cannot do anything, but through Christ we can do anything God has us to do. If God calls us to something he isn't going to leave us to dry, and if He does, who cares? This life should be spent living for Him, not for luxury. We have an eternity of awesomeness after this fleshly life. Why not spend it trying to get more people in that eternity with us?
Sometimes, I feel like the reason people are driven away form modern Christianity are these issues you've brought to the table. It becomes so burdensome worrying about how others view the church, how we worship, what we are learning, who's in control. It becomes never ending (an lead to headaches.) Just a feeling I had...
On another note, I've actually talked to someone who came to one of our Sunday services, and this said person actually told me that they worried about our worship style. It "isn't open enough, too many hymns, too rehearsed, not enough real emotion," all that jazz. It upset me a little. The person didn't comment on what Brother Michael talked about (probably didn't remember anyway). But, the point is: we do often forget that it's not just the worship.
I think it takes time to solve problems like this. Actually, I don't think they can ever really be solved. They are realizations we can try to put an end to in our own lives, but convincing others to do so is an entirely different task in it's self. In a sense, I agree with David. I can only follow God to the best of my ability, and in no way can I persuade others to follow with me. I can only be the example (and I'm a bad one at that usually.)
And David is very blunt. Just a side note... It makes me laugh.
It has been almost 7 days since I hurt my foot, and I find it harder ever hour to stay on my feet, but the easier it is to keep my full trust and faith in God. I think God has allowed this to happen to make me begin to become fully dependent on Him. One of my prayers for the past month or so has been "God help me fully trust You and become fully dependent on You." Well He has answered it, but in a very strange way. God always seems to answer prayers with not a teddybear that makes us automatically come to Him, instead He presents us with a situation that gives us the choice to follow Him. This has just been something on my mind and I felt like sharing it.
David,
I think God puts things like that in everyone's lives. I think that's the reason I get sick before crosswalk because maybe in the past months or so I would get on stage and sing and not think about who I was singing to. But then when I get sick before crosswalk, I have to think about God, because only God can make me better. To me, I don't think God should have to make me sick for me to depend on Him, or make Him the focus. I should have already made him the focus. I always have to remind myself That God is a Sovereign God. Always remember that God is a sovereign God.
I feel like we don't preach the whole Bible because many people are afraid to "offend" someone. If we weren't so busy being worried about what people think about us and just do what Christ calls us to do, I think alot more would get done. Another thing that upsets me is how we ask for money and things from people, and then we whine about it when we don't get it. Take Shine for example. Shine is doing a fundraiser for 2 children that probably won't be having a very merry Christmas. They're not getting very much money, and I can almost garuantee the people who had the idea and the other members of Shine aren't praying about it at all. In Matthew 7 Christ basically says,"If you never ask, you'll never recieve." and Christ also says ,"You have to ask sincerely." Sincerely being faithfully and fully pure of heart. If the people of Shine would have just prayed and asked God for guidance I think it would have gone alot more smoothly. I've chosen to not go to Shine anymore because I feel like it's just something that people do to turn the wheel. Everytime I've been I never hear the Word, and the contradictions that are made in it upset me. Christ turned away from the "spiritual" meeting that the pharisees went to and instead hung out with prostitutes. I think there would be better outreach if we would instead of closing up and giving sex talks or to pray outloud, if we would go and sit at random tables, talk to new people in cafeteria, or maybe even just offer to throw their trash away(jacked this idea from Josh). I think so often we caught in our own bubbles that we become numb to what God wants us to do... This has been kinda long, so I think I'll stop here. Hope this can generated some form of discussion.
you know david i agree with you....if we want to show people Christ and if Shine really wants people to come they dont need to shut themselves up away from everybody.....at the beginning of the year it was good....we had great ideas about going out and having it in the cafeteria and talking to people and inviting people...but some didnt want that....they thought we should just stay in a room and if the people outside wanted to come in then they could....but how are they supposed to know that they are welcome there if no one tells them that they are....I stoped going to Shine too cause we locked ourselves up from the rest of the school
It's fine if Shine wants to go into closed doors and do a bible study, I have no problem. The only thing is that it's missing that key ingredient of a bible study... The Bible. Also outreach isn't necessarilly you giving Jesus speaches, to be honest everyday of our lives should be spent in outreach by us simply showing the love that we have because of Christ. If we acted like the Bible says for us to, then people would see it, and want it. Then they would investigate, because we as humans are intrigued by the unnatural(Which is kind of funny because God is supernatural, and He causes His followers to act unnatural). People of the Bible have craptastic lives and yet still they follow God and hold firm to the joy that they have because of Him(Job for example). Instead we allow ourselves to stand at the edge with one foot in the water to test the temperature. Sometimes you have to just jump in, and it's something that I know I'm going to have to do when it comes to sharing my faith. I'm coming to realize that if I keep trying to test the waters of sharing my faith, then I'm never going to do it, because to be honest, it's one chilly pool of water.
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