I currently have this fear of churches. I am really trying to shake it, to get over it, to be a big boy about it all. It is hard though, the further I dig into scripture and look at the life Jesus lived and asks us to live, the worse my phobia gets. It's not that the "church" (meaning institutional structures and organizations of the modern era commonly found in many towns and cities throughout North America) is bad or all that wrong, I guess it is more a question of effectiveness. This begs the question, how do we measure effectiveness? Amount of cash in the plate? Number of butts in the pews? Biggest youth group? Largest Christmas musical? Biggest steeple? Most radio shows? I think the way effectiveness needs to be measured is by lives and then communities that start looking like Christ. This means compassion, serving, self-sacrifice, peace, love and relevance. The church needs to find its way back into culture, amongst the people that need it most.
2 comments:
well that's a nice argument and all jim, but back up a minute. you skipped over the real answer pretty quick: largest christmas musical. it really takes an awesome church to pull that one off. i especially like the new "hip" christmas plays that incorporate "christian rap"!
seriously though, good point about starting to change the entire community, that's a huge goal, but go big or go home. it's happened in the past, why can't it happen now? the residents of gulfport were open to christians, because they see how much time, money and love christians have poured into that community... i know that god can use that openness for his purposes.
Matt,
Good post but make sure that you capitalize the g in God and the c in Christian and Christmas. Also, though you didn't need to this time, when you refer to God or Jesus as He or Him make sure that you capitalize that h. It really upsets God if you don't follow these time honored grammatical principles. He told me so and if I'm not mistaken I've been a Christian longer than you have so you have to defer to me on this one. That's another unwritten Christian rule. There's lots of them and you need to follow every single one or you might end up in Burgertory. For those of you who don't know, Burgertory is a lot like Purgatory but there are hamburgers.
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