So I haven’t posted in a while, but it will become more frequently. I don’t know who reads this, but I hope this helps you. It helps me just to get this stuff out on paper (web-page). I must add a disclaimer to this post. I have written based on personal experience and have tried my best to reason through it. I may not be as right as I would like to think. This is just what I’ve come up with so far. I’m sure as God draws me further along I’ll see where I am usually so sorely lacking. If there is anything true, good, or beautiful about this post it originated from the One who ultimately is. It was nothing of my own.
So here’s the thought(s):
Why do we keep thinking the church is for the unsaved and make it attractive to them so?
Why is the whole work week in some churches spent feverishly maintaining programs that are a supposed benefit to the Kingdom and highly effective means of evangelism?
I have worked at churches that will bleed themselves dry of money, time, family, and mass effort to invest in programs to trick unbelievers into coming to church to get saved.
I have never found any passage that says church is for the unbeliever. Jesus says to Peter, “feed MY sheep.” That is all. So far, in the New Testament the most common activities in church were: praise, prayer, singing, teaching, and fellowship (sharing all things in common) as suggested in Colossians 3. Shouldn’t we do what is asked of us and edify the body? Shouldn’t we focus instead on the believer to help them be a disciplined disciple of Christ? Then evangelism would happen every day of the week. Don’t get me wrong, I believe evangelism is in fact essential to being a Christian. But it needs to happen everyday in our relations with people. One of the reasons the “Emergent Church” is so attractive to people is because of the idea of relational evangelism; we go to them. The idea of evangelism being the point of the church is so prevalent that this alternative method is looking more attractive. But if you adopt emergent church method, you adopt a plethora of other problems that still don’t fix the skewed view of the Church’s role in the world. They seem to see a lot of valid problems with the church. I don’t agree with man of their solutions, but that’s a whole ‘nother post. Their emphasis on social justice is admirable and overlooked by the church as a whole. It is becoming quite trendy to adopt radical social justice programs in church now, but social justice will not save the church. Social justice is just another program a church can buy into without getting the point. I guess I’m just so tired of programs.
If you have any thoughts, solutions, hey-you-were-wrong’s please post them!
Now onto the song (this was from another post)
Here’s a song/poem that I wrote on thoughts about the church in some areas trying to bolster growth with programs and more religious activity. It all seems to happen under the guise of marketing church to the un-churched.
If my people would humbly pray
If they truly seek my face
Maybe they would hear my voice
And cease to strive
If my people would worship me
The world would hear
They have tasted, seen and known
How their holy God will ever be
If my people would love one another
The world would know
How great the love that I have given
That all my children should show
If my people would band together
In spirit and in truth
Hell’s gates would fall in pieces
Heaven’s glory shining through
I’ve given you a promise
One spirit and one truth
A holy word, a sword, a guide
A letter telling you
You don’t need a program
And you don’t need the lights
And all the self help books won’t get you through the night
You don’t need to help me
Prepare my holy bride
But if you would help
I’d gladly use you
Please lay aside your pride
So what have you done with my lover
So simple and so pure
You dressed her up in costume gowns
So many masks cover her
Was her beauty not enough?
Was her truth not life?
I left her here 2000 years ago
And I’ll be coming in the night
What will she look like?
