Tell me something... what if we've got it all wrong? The church thing I mean...
What if church is not supposed to be about "worship"? What then?
What if music is supposed to play a minor role and not a major one (excuse the pun).
What if God doesn't care for self-focussed, romantic lyrics sung to boomer, 1980s, soft pop music...
What if we have moved so far from what church is supposed to be that Jesus no longer sees His Bride in us?
What if I'm being extreme...?
Whew...
What if I'm not...?
What if church is supposed to be less about music, monologue, lecture-style teaching in theatre style auditoriums and more about living life with people who share the same questions, struggles, joys and challenges that I do?
What if God wants to speak when we gather ...but He's speaking softly and the music is too loud?
What if the community gathered wants to say something to God but there is no opportunity.. and they are being led by leaders who are too busy loving the sound of their own voices?
What if the community wants to celebrate God's mighty deeds past and present but nobody is keeping track...
What if there are people in our midst who have much to share about God's past deeds but we've silenced them... the very ones who lived it...
What if the real church is supposed to be providing money to struggling families, single-parent homes or homes where grandmas and grandpas are struggling to raise their grandchildren who have been abandoned by parents who were to young, too drunk, to drugged to raise their own children?
What if we are supposed to do this even if they are not members... not in our community... not of the same faith?
What if God was serious about expecting us to meet the needs of the widows and the fatherless?
What if spending 10s of thousands of dollars to go over seas for a religious experience is actually a sin?
What if it's a sin to own a motor-home... or a cottage... or a house that is bigger than you'll ever use... or a new SUV... or a second car...
...or more than one guitar...
...ouch!
Just wondering...
my 2c
Birthday Party
3 days ago
5 comments:
To answer your "what if" questions:
You would have a form of godliness but no power.
Welcome to American Xianity!
Plug into the matrix and lose your soul.
What if we focused on what we were doing right and encouraged others to do better, than on seeing all the ways we are doing things wrong?
What if we focused on strengths rather than on failures and shame-based systems and evaluations?
What if we focused on what God was doing rather than what man was doing (right or wrong)?
What if we undertood that people in the church already know we have short-comings and tried to lead each other into more authentic ways of living out faith?
What if we focussed on our ministries and on encouragement rather than someone else's ministries and how they don't meet our standards or our needs?
What if we let God worry about His church, rather than spend our energies trying to be HIs mouthpiece amid the thousands of other mouthpieces?
What if we showed our discontent by building our own community of believers into something "more Biblical" or "more relevent"?
What if we came up with ways to minister to seniors and children and youth that are viable and relevent to them; at the same time being effective outside of traditional ministries?
What if we gave our sisters and brothers in Jesus the freedom to be who they need to be, and do our own thing in our own context?
What if we just focused on Jesus and what He was doing with us in our own walk rather than what He wasn't doing in someone else's?
I expect blog traffic would be cut in half, that we would see some neat ministries arise and we would see many people come to Jesus and begin to mature. Perhaps even "form" would be less of an issue with both traditional and emergent types and there would be more dialogue and cooperation between the generations and ministries rather than pointing fingers at each other's philosphy and Biblical interpretations. We might even get some work done! Just maybe...
Steve
For the most part.. absolutely nothing would change... You are proposing that we don't ask hard questions - don't evaluate what we may be doing incorrectly - don't look to make adjustments - Some of us learn the most when others ask us hard questions about our failures as opposed to being told "It's OK Jesus loves you anyway."
True Jesus loves me regardless but I know I can do better and hard questions push me towards my God-given, Spirit-empowered potential...
Afterall it evaluation is God's idea...
God looked and saw and it was good... and it was good... and it was good... and God said, "It is not good, therefore I will..."
When it comes to hard questions and evaluation we are the ones who run and hide in the bushes not God - the question is who do we want to model our ministries after Adam and Eve in the bushes or a God who creates and evaluates?
As far as the spending tens of thousands on an overseas religious experience...I'd be extremely interested in you writing more on that one...
It's something I've thought a fair bit about, but haven't really looked into too deeply.
Check this out...
http://justablacksheep.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-i-am-against-religious-missions.html
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