This is another post from "Citizens of Another Kingdom" that went out of existence with the demise of Yahoo 360. At the time that I wrote the article I led a house church congregation and my wife and I were directors of Siouxland Christian Food Pantry. Since the date of publication, both circumstances have changed in my life. While some circumstances have changed, the substance of the message has not changed. Enjoy!
So What's Wrong with the Church? June 15, 2007
I have been outside of the fellowship of the mainstream church for a year and a half now.
For over twenty-five years previously, I had been a member in good standing of a church, been a deacon, elder, assistant pastor, and pastor of local church. Since leaving the church, I have spent Sundays reading the Bible and listening to local services on the radio, I have developed a small house church, and I have trafficked in various parts of the patriot movement, remnant Christian movement etc. The one consistency in any of these areas of fellowship is the inadequacy of the church.
I have numerous examples of abuse in the church in my life. This week alone I have experienced two examples of abuse from folks with whom I had fellowship at one time.Last Saturday, my wife and I went with our nephew and fiancee to Sioux Falls for the day. Before leaving, we stopped at a Hardee's for breakfast. While we were waiting for our breakfast, a colleague approached me.
"I thought I'd come over and say, since you ignored me when you came in.
"My wife responded, "We didn't even see you, Fred".
"Where are you going to church?" he asked me.
"We have a home based church," I replied.
"What are you doing for evangelism?" he asked."What do you mean?"
"Well, God says to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. You aren't doing that if you are just preaching to your cat."
In the time it takes to count three many thoughts went through my mind. Not the least of which was to knock out this asinine old man for being so smart mouthed, and almost ruining a good day. But I was in the control of the Holy Spirit. I didn't give the man the beating that he deserved, verbal or otherwise. I didn't get embarrassed and say nothing. I ended the conversation: "Good bye, Fred!" I said.
He stood there dumbfounded."Bye!" I said, waving my hand dismissively.
So I know there are self-righteous, asinine church people walking around, so demon possessed and yet so blind.
Today I had another such encounter. It was in Siouxland Christian Food Pantry, which is run by my wife, who is the volunteer director. A deacon of the church which owns the building of the food pantry came in to get food."We saw you at the Hy Vee coffee shop the other day and you didn't even speak to us. You were with your dad and you didn't want to talk with us".
What do you say to that. I saw them. They saw me and they didn't speak. So what?
I responded by doing what I was there to do... feed your enemies etc.
When I first decided to write this type of an article, I had planned to play on the old church ad, "What's missing in ch__ch? You are!" That is because we are the church, when we believe in Jesus Christ. Regardless of what type of worship community we attend on Sunday, we are the church, therefore we must be part of the problem.
I regularly tell my house church congregation not to become proud, because you part of a nontraditional worship community. You are still a part of the church of God in South Sioux City, or metropolitan Sioux City. We face many of the same pitfalls and temptations as our brothers and sisters in the more traditional congregations. We share our present and past hurts we have received from Christians, then we pray for them for their revival and their success.
I was reading Phillip Yancey's book Soul Survivor today. His chapter on G.K. Chesterton addresses some of these concerns. To paraphrase Chesterton, one of the proofs of the truths of the church is the failure of Christians. It proves that we are sinners and that we need a savior.The truth is that many of us expect too much of one local congregation we call the church.
Just as we have a large group of family and friends with whom we have variable amounts of contact, so we need to have many friends and family in the faith. I can talk about demonic influences in our culture with my house church family, but I cannot share every aspect of my journey with them any more than I could with any other member of any congregation I have attended.
I have Christian friends that are active in their local church, some are back slidden, and some are finding their way back to the Lord. I find the book club I facilitate brings together people from many branches of faith, but I loved to see the Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists get together to defend the biblical view of salvation, the resurrection and eternity, when we read
The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Faced with a new agey/Buddhist view of heaven those women came together to agree on the fact of Jesus Christ being the only way to salvation, the sufficiency of the blood of Christ for salvation, and the hope of the resurrection.
Think of the sad state of the world if there was on Christian influence. No church weddings, no proclamation of the blessed hope during funerals, no hospitals, no care for the poor, no public education, and no time of peace on earth for which we can look forward.
I encourage my congregation to be more active in the church throughout our community:
1. Attend revivals and concerts at other churches.
2. Fellowship with your friends at their churches once in a while.
3. Support local Christian radio.
4. Thank commercial radio stations when they play Christian worship services, or inspirational music.
5. Last Christmas I played Christian Christmas hymns, while I worked the front desk at the library at which I work.
6. Go to the weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and funerals of your family and friends.
7. Pray for the spiritual fervor of the Church in your community.
Be part of the solution, not just part of the problem. For better of worse, we are the church together.
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