“Oh, so you hate the church “

One of the four people that read this thing said that to me in jest the other day. I have read over my entries over the last little bit here and listened (yes, I do do that) to some people close to me in my life about the “tone” of the entries.

If they sound as if they are full of frustration–they are. If they sound as if we are losing the race to reach the world for Christ–I think we are. BUT, I hope you could hear my heart–they are full of passion for the “called out ones,” the Church! I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ is THE ONLY way we are going to “fix” our world. If I didn’t believe that, I would be doing something else for a living! As Bill Hybels says in Courageous Leadership and has said for years, the “Church is the hope of the world!”

I am not anti-building or anti-program–unless the building or program draws our eyes and focus off of Jesus! How foolish for us to be anti-building all the while meeting in a building! However, it is also foolish to simply dismiss the lack of focus on Jesus as “just the way it is.” Maybe that is part of the problem. We aren’t concerned that we have lost our focus on Jesus.

I feel a lot like the church in Revelation (many of them actually) that had “lost it’s first love.” I can remember when God called me to the ministry full-time (the first time–and then I ran from the calling for several years.) It was during the summer at Glorieta, NM at the Glorieta Baptist Conference Center. I was at Centrifuge Youth Camp and there were counselors that were college and seminary students that were being paid next to nothing to pour into us. The passion that I felt was not about the worship experience (hello, it was the 80s and we didn’t do worship . . . we did some goofy songs followed by a message.) It wasn’t the facilities either–they were great and all, but that wasn’t the deal. It wasn’t even our youth group that was really great and helped me come to Christ and grow in the ministry. I can remember talking to my friend Lyndall Jones and saying, “I see the excitement these leaders have for Christ . . . I would love to do this for a living sometime.” Little did I know that they weren’t making much of a living, but they had made a life–a lifestyle of evangelism and discipleship all wrapped up in one. They were the Church–actually the first picture of the Church outside of my tiny view of the Church being a building on 525 South Ave. in Springfield.

A lot of things happened since that July night in New Mexico. Somewhere along the line, I became a professional Christian and “lost my first love.” I even went to seminary so they could teach me how to separate myself even more from the “common man” and learned how to not sin (yeah, right!) and say the right prayers and learned the “program” of how to “do” church. The problem is that we don’t “do” Church, we “are” the Church. I know that some people would say that is simply semantics. I don’t think so. It has slipped into the vocabulary of the Church and can be the cause to many of her problems. I began to focus on externals and not on Jesus. There is a huge problem when my job as a “professional” minister entails a whole lot of stuff that has nothing to do with Jesus and certainly not very much about the Great Commandment or Great Commission. I know, I’m probably very young and naive, but I have decided that I must work really hard at what Paul says, “to know Christ” instead of simply plug and play the program. And when you make those kinds of decisions, you are looked upon as “abnormal” and get comments like, “I love Jesus and all, but I don’t think you need to be a radical about it!”

No, I don’t hate the Church! She is the hope of the world . . . starting here in my world! My problem (and part of the reason I am so passionate about it) is that if we aren’t careful, our kids are going to inherit our own lack of focus!

There needs to be balance, as in everything with all of this stuff. We need to love God and love others. But Jesus also said we ought to “love your neighbor as yourself.” So yes, it is about us at some points . . . but it is also about them–out there, without a relationship with Jesus Christ. While we are serving Christ, He is ministering to us and growing us. For example, I have a friend who just got back from a mission trip to Nicaragua. They built 26 houses for people in the village they were in. For the amount of less than $2000, a simple house could be made. One man said, “I have been praying to God for 6 years to help me get a house for my family–I never thought he would give me a mansion!” A mansion!! My friend stepped out of his comfort zone, ministered to someone else, and he said he will never be the same again.

Again, I am not saying we don’t have to meet outdoors in the heat and cold. We need buildings and programs in the Church. But as Dale Campbell used to say to me, “gold conducts electricity, but simple copper will do .”

It reminds me of the post quite a while back about this church that wants to build an amphitheater for a worship center that can be used for the community as a park. This is a video that went along with this idea of spending our money (that is actually God’s) wisely and MORE of it on OTHERS than ourselves. Here is their rationale behind the project. That is an awesome picture of the Church, the Bride of Christ–looking to be a little bit uncomfortable so that others might receive a blessing.

Part of the reason I rant and rave is because I am not doing all that I should be doing. This blog is sort of therapeutic for me in a way. I am probably harder on Finley Crossings than anybody else! Part of the frustration is that I feel we are so close to becoming more like the kind of church that we see in the New Testament. I also look back at the wonderful heritage that I have been given and I don’t want to see my generation blow it for Taylor and Tucker’s generation to clean up. Christ died for you and me because we would someday become the Body of Christ. He died for the Bride. And He is coming back soon to get Her. I pray we are ready.

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