- I have spoken with someone who is thinking about coming to church but whose life has been imperfect so they felt that they could not come to church and would not be accepted until they got their life nice and presentable.
- I have spoken with a church member who thinks the only thing the church should be doing when it comes together is doing Bible Studies and Worship Services, nothing else.
- I accidentally entered into a conversation with a woman in New York City who hosts a cable talk show, writes for the newspaper, acts on Broadway, does voice overs for commercials, and does motivational seminars. Her email address was one letter off from an email address of a Sugar Grove guest which lead to the accidental conversation. In the email I offered an invitation to get together and talk and pray for a few minutes on a Sunday morning. This person in New York City responded back to me as if I were a creepy stalker making it very clear that they were not religious and don't do 'the pray thing'. This person very quickly became hostile and wanted me to leave them alone.
All three of these people have a significant misunderstanding of what church is and is not. What has caused the misunderstanding toward what church is or should be? Is it a world that is bent on damaging or destroying the church? I don't think so. I have reason to suspect the views all three of these people have been influenced by churches themselves, not by some outside influence.
The guest who believed they needed to get their life in order identified that previous churches they had been connected to had made it very clear that things like baptism and membership could not happen unless you got your life in order first. The fallacy of this logic lies in the role of the Holy Spirit in our life. It is ultimately the power of the Spirit in our lives that gives us the strength to live a Godly life. Forcing someone to get their life in order without the strength of the Spirit in their life teaches a person to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. It teaches that we are made perfect by our own efforts, not by the work of God in our life. We can by sheer will do the right thing for a while but true change comes because we have allowed the Spirit of God to indwell our heart and guide our lives and convict us of our own sin.
At an even deeper level the fallacy of this 'do the right thing through your own power' logic is that salvation comes because of what we have done, not because of what Jesus has done. This logic says that we are saved if we do what God says correctly placing the power of salvation on our obedience through our own strength of will. This type of 'religion' has no need for God or the Holy Spirit because it is up to us. In fact my encounters with leaders in churches like this have literally told me that God does not actively work in the world today and that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than the printed word of God. These people have gutted the power of the Bible and have instead turned it into a 'To Do' manual.
The consequence of this view is a humanistic religion that creates either arrogance because of the 'look what I've done' attitude or a hopelessness because of the realization that you can never on your own do all that you are supposed to do. A secondary problem that is created is a bizarre set of tacit rules that identify which sins are unacceptable and which sins will be overlooked.
The member who thought the church should only be studying the Bible or in a worship service when they come together is influenced by a similar pattern view of church that has been taught by many people through the years. This view places limits on what the church can and cannot do so that the church as a whole will be acceptable to God. The problem is that the list of what the church can and cannot do is not agreed upon even though each group has been taught to believe that their view is correct and should be applied and adopted by everyone around them.
In the first century the church was a market place church meaning the life of the church was carried out daily in the lives of the believers led by the Holy Spirit as they worked, lived, and played. The Holy Spirit led each believer to share the message of the joy of salvation with those they were around. When the church came together it was to celebrate the savior, be convicted by the work of the Spirit in their midst, and renew their commitment to the journey of faith. In this atmosphere the idea of going to church was foreign because all that they did was church. God was powerfully active in their midst whether they were the believers meeting together or the believers living out their life. The idea of a compartmentalized religion such as we have today would have been foreign to first century Christians.
In later centuries the church developed into a cathedral religion meaning faith was primarily expressed when the church came together in a specific place for a specific purpose. In this type of environment there was less need for the power of the Spirit to work in their midst because what they did was planned out- the expression of religion became something to do and believe instead of something to live. This cathedral religion model has dramatically impacted our view of church today. This can be seen when we say we are going to go to church because church is what we do when we come together, not who we are.
The cathedral view of religion has a number of downfalls. It allows us to compartmentalize our life- we can live for God in one part of our life while disallowing God from another part of our life with very little realization that this is a problem. We can easily fulfill our religious duty by learning more about the Bible or participating in a worship service which takes away any significant sense of need to allow God to infiltrate our life outside the 'cathedral'.
The cathedral view has very little need for the Holy Spirit to work in our life because our religious duties are boiled down to planned activities and events which fits very nicely into a scientific and logical world view. When we go about our daily life with our heart, mind, soul, and strength open and available to be used by God we will be amazed at the never ending way in which the Holy Spirit desires to use us as a witness for God. But this thought process becomes foreign to us when we only do religious things that do not require the Holy Spirit to guide and help us. Consequently we end up with a religion that begins to shape and form around planned events that will work just fine even if God does not show up.
The person in New York City who had a panic attack and felt as if they had been violated when I offered to pray with them demonstrates something that has happened to view God, church, and Christianity as an incredible danger. I may never know what happened to this person but it has brought them onto my radar and I have been praying for God to work in their life, I'm just not going to send an email telling them! But this person brings to light how deep the damage can go in a person's life when 'religion' is allowed to become a set of rules to be followed.
I know of someone whose coworker is in the LGBT community. When this person in the LGBT community found out their co worker was a Christian they became defensive, rude, and sarcastic. This went on for a few years until one day the LGBT person told the Christian that God and all Christians hate them. The Christian asked questions and found out the LGBT's mother's church told this person that God hated them and would never accept them. This person loved God but knew the feelings and emotions they had in regard to their own sexuality that did not go away so they were left feeling abandoned by God, the church, and all Christians which left bitterness and pain. When this Christian told them God loves them tears flowed. This conversation and relationship has developed for a number of years to the point that the Christian says this person would probably be willing to be a part of a church that was willing to show God's love to this person.
All of these stories point toward a commonality... If the Church wants to be The Church it is going to have to let the Holy Spirit work and intentionally put itself and it's members in positions where it ain't gonna' work unless God shows up bringing His gifts of guidance, leading, power, strength, and healing.
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