I believe as Christians and a Church we are to carry out the great commission. But i think we have lost focus of reaching the lost and focused more on the Sunday morning church meeting and bringing people in the doors and in the pews.
Let's face it, the respect for the church has plummeted drastically, especially with the upcoming generations. And so why do we expect people to come to us when we won't go to them?
It just seems logical that Christians should not GO to church at all. If we are concentrated more on the service quality, the attendance, sunday school, or spending time with good people it defeats our purpose. Im not saying church is pointless because i have seen many good things happen in the church and i have seen many people become followers of Jesus because they decided to step in the doors of a church building one sunday. But, i think we miss out on SO MANY MORE opportunities to share the gospel just because we spend more time GOING to church than BEING the Church.
I wonder what Paul would say about the church today. Does it do more harm than good?
7 comments:
I think part of the problem may be that churches are trying to appeal to too many people. They want ot make sure people keep coming, so they try to keep everyone happy. However, it's a difficult place to be in trying to minister to the new people, the people who don't yet believe, and the church members who are far from baby Christians. If a church preached the message of the cross-grace every Sunday for those who may be hearing it for the first time, they'd run the risk of losing members who had been Christians for longer and were in a different place spiritually. Therein lies another problem. Many Christian people (and I do this too) seem to be more concerned with how moved they feel by a message than by actaully moving...like you wrote getting out and actually living the Great Commission. They're turned off by a chruch because they're not being "fed." While it is important for Christians to have felllwoship with other strong believers and grow in their faith, creating a place where every strong believer could be "fed" in the sense that they want to be would exclude many. "Sorry, at this church the sermmons are only understood by biblical scholars and those who grown up in the chruch all they're lives...you'll have to go to baby-church." Hey look, there's another problem! Those people who complain about not being on Sunday mornings...what are they doing with their spiritual lives the rest of the week that they are looking to Sunday mornings as their "spiritual awakening" time? I don't know if you can be long-winded while writing,but if you can I think I've achieved it...and I don't think I really even answered your question. :)
I love what Lindsey said....more people are concerned about how they feel moved by a message than actually moving....excellent point!
Drew you know i LOVE this topic...and I loved our discussion today...let's keep it up! you are awesome!
Ada boy, George Barna. Affecting the life of the boy from the midwest. Holy cow your whole post sounded like it was coming straight from Revolution. I love it. Don't go to church, Be the church. Not that church is a bad thing but yeah, you know what I mean, you've read the book.
"Again, one artifact of the mini-movement phenomenon has been that millions of people who are growing as Christians and passionate about their faith have come to recognize that the local church is not-and need not be-the epicenter of their spiritual adventure.... But make no mistake about it: God is still active in the lives of those people who are wholeheartedly devoted to and searching for Him- no matter what door they enter on their journey to Christlikeness."
George Barna-Revolution
That is what I am talking about. Peru baby!!!
Hey Buddy, Good Question! I don't think it does more harm than good but boy I sure think we stumble all over ourselves sometimes. I mean the freedom we find in Jesus we sometimes clutter with rules and tradition. Sometimes we are afraid to do when we probably should just do. Do you know what I mean? Having said this we need to be careful that we never think that the witness and efforts of individuals in any particular church is what we personally see during the limited time we see them each week. The early church witnessed in the marketplace, the workplace, on the roadway, as they went about their life. And so do Christians today, many people that you see each week as they live in this world seek God"s will daily and witness in this world living the Great Commission as they go throughout their life at the market, at work and as they travel. Church and being faithful to the commission can be compatible when our focus remains on pleasing Christ. You know sharing Him. You know 17 year olds aren't the only ones who worry about the direction of the church. The following is an except from an article I wrote for our church paper in Feb. 2007. "We need to be reminded to keep it simple too! We create circumstances, issues and problems. We get so busy taking care of the business of the church that we forget the BUSINESS of the Church and before long we’ve convinced ourselves that these issues have something to do with the gift of salvation that Christ has provided for us." 53 yr. old folks think about that stuff too! But you shouldn't be suprised, you told me we shared the same brain. Keep thinking, keep writing.
Love ya man, Scott G.
Just like Sharla, I love this topic too. I read Revolution in College for one of my classes, and it's not that I didn't like the book, (I thought his overall message was great, but probably more misunderstood than understood by those who read it) it's just that I think he could have written the book in a lot less pages.
We have to think about the fact that we still see "church" as something we go to every week. When in fact, we should be coming together as a local church to be the Church. And even if we get that part, we still don't know what the Church really looks like anymore because the local church has been distorting church for so long.
We shouldn't be coming to a local place to sit in a seat and listen to one guy speak about what God has supposedly put on his heart to speak about every week. The local church should be a group of people who come together to talk about what God has put on all of their hearts that week. We should try that (as I believe we were doing at Starbuck's on Monday nights in Newburgh) for a while and see how much the local church really can be a major part of a person's growth and maturity in Christ.
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