*This post was originally written a few days back, prior to seeing a comment on Facebook that sparked my desire to go ahead and post it. I do not mean it to be condemning, but I do mean it to be an honest reflection of my perception of a church family that I love, but about whom I am worried. The excerpt is taken from my ongoing writing, "What I Believe."*
A Wake up Call to the Church
...As I mentioned, I was raised Methodist, and as a kid/youth/young adult enjoyed every minute of it. After all, church to me was just the place I got to hang out with Gary and other friends. As a teenager, it was the place to meet girls and do fun activities. It wasn’t until college that I realized I had really taken no great spiritual insight from my time there. I called myself Christian, but knew deep down that zoning out through sermons and occasionally praying at devotionals was not enough to be a Christian.
The Methodist church, or this one anyway, was not too keen to focus on the big issues like salvation. I’m sure they believed it, but shied away from specific terms for it. You’ll never hear the word “saved” in a Methodist church.
In college, I attended my first non-denominational church and realized what it was like to worship in music, hear a great message, and not get caught up in all of the hullabaloo of rise, kneel, sit, repeat after me. There is something to be said for church tradition, but the order of worship, and the joy with which I’m sure everyone recited the Lord’s prayer, was not enough to convince me of a true spirit of salvation within the Methodist church.
Don’t get me wrong, there were great Christian people there. There was also a large number of older individuals who resisted any change, and focused more on budget planning than Christ. I know those things are important to maintain a church, but when you attend church primarily for the staff meetings, and not to connect with God, something is a bit off.
I took a lot of great insight from my time there. I still love a lot of people there who are doing great work for the kingdom. I was a bit put off when the first pastor to arrive with a mind for change in years was initially treated badly. The problem was always a lack of desire to change within the church. Each and every Sunday, the same people in the same seats heard the same message of doing good mission works, and how someday we’d all get to Heaven if we just kept coming on Sundays.
The Pastor who came in, had an air of charisma about him that the church desperately needed. He had an agenda to wake them up. He spoke more of salvation than previous pastors, and had relevant messages (at least for the ones I heard while visiting). Still, his ideas for waking up the sleepy church seemed largely ignored. I pray that now whoever leads currently, will put some fire in their britches and bring their minds to God.
If it sounds harsh, it is only because I feel it’s time to be honest. I am not an expert Bible scholar, or a seminary trained Pastor, but I can certainly recognize a sleeping church when I see one. Mainly because I’ve been part of a living church since then, and the difference is huge.
A church on fire for Christ, is focused on Christ and getting people to Christ. I can count the number of sermons that I remember from the Methodist church on one hand, and most of that is due to their controversial nature. Controversial in the sense that it is the type of place where solid foundational Christian doctrine can be pushed aside in favor of not hurting feelings or seeming intolerant.
It is a disease that permeates churches these days. A disease that says, your truth is ok with me because absolute truth stings to hear. Last I checked, especially for believers in Christ, there is ONE Absolute truth. There is not room for picking and choosing which aspects of Christ you like. There is one sovereign God, in three persons, whose wrath required a sacrifice, and whose sacrifice was met, in Christ (both fully God and man), who took the wrath upon himself, that we might be saved from it.
Christ was a nice guy while on earth, I’ll give you that. But he was also God, which means he had the same holy, righteous, just attributes along with his love. To call him a great moral teacher and nothing more is to spit in the face of God. To say Jesus would tolerate certain sins because he loved everyone, is to deny half of God’s attributes; namely justice and holiness.
The Methodists do not deny these things, but they also do not always stand up against those who would deny them. And it isn’t just Methodism. It’s all of the major denominations. Church leaders want to know why this generation is straying from denomination in favor of non-denomination. It’s because the focus was always supposed to be on Christ and the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. The extras were added to help with memory before written word was as common. The Catholic church played a big part in starting dogma based only on their desire to control the masses, not on early church practices. Look back to the New Testament letters and show me where it says that good works are enough for Heaven. While James does touch on this in his letter, when taken in proper context, he is simply saying that out of salvation comes a desire for works, and faith in Christ without those subsequent works is a dead faith. He agrees with Paul that it is by grace that we are saved, through faith, not of works.
Sure we are supposed to do mission work. Sure we are supposed to tithe. But would it not be more helpful in today’s anti-Christian climate, to train our congregations Biblically? Would it not help to train to a degree in apologetics? Would it not help to teach the essential doctrines, and to inform that salvation is more than just that prayer you said that one time? IT involves Sanctification, an ongoing process of repentance and desire to be righteous and Christ-like. We cannot be perfect, but we are to strive for perfection.
In Sanctification, we cannot allow Christians' “pet sins” to continue without rebuke. The church can allow as many unwed teen mothers, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, thieves etc... as they want, but they had better be calling sin what it is, and working with those people to be sanctified in their salvation, albeit through love and discernment. Yes, Christ loves everyone, but Christ must also judge everyone someday, based on their response to His Gospel. We cannot have pastors who are gay, and priests who molest children without rebuke. Those called to shepherd the flock, are called to live an example to others. By allowing sin to permeate the pastoral ministries, we allow it to permeate the body. As Paul says, A little leaven makes a change in all the mass.
The reason many people are starting their own home Bible studies, and their own churches, is because they see Christ as the central theme of our lives. Looking past all of the man made rules (Created to satisfy our own power struggles), they see that at the heart of Christianity is the Bible, and Christ. The truth of Christ, not the fluffy liberal/secular view.
John’s gospel begins by telling us that Christ is God and was with God at the formation of the worlds. He is eternally God as the second part of the Trinity. His time on earth was to rescue us from the sin brought about by Lucifer’s fall. God knew before the formation of the worlds how this would play out, and the plan was in place before the creation of any angels or men. Christ came as God and man, because only a substitutionary death can pay the penalty for sin against a holy and just God. His love can only be manifest in part with his justice and holiness, and our sin separated us from Him. But, loving us, he sent his son to die in our place. He became man, while maintaining his divine nature, to accept the wrath upon himself, to rid us of our sin once and for all. We must only believe on the sacrifice, and live our lives in repentance and desire for righteousness. Now if I had only learned that growing up in the Methodist church instead of through the various resources, podcasts, non-denom churches, and fellow believers, I wouldn't see an issue.
The churches I was raised in, have fallen asleep. I go back to visit and see everything the same as I left it. More empty seats tell me that a split occurred, or that there was no value coming from it. Those who have remained, try to keep it afloat, but without a serious change in mindset, there is little anyone can do.
To my brethren in that church, I urge you to put away the desire to please man with your words, and to shift the focus to pleasing God. Don’t be afraid of salvation, but embrace it as your only means ending the separation with God that we are all born into. There are great people there with hearts on fire for God, but they cannot make changes because of the bureaucracy that has set itself up. A government body instead of Christ’s body. If the denominational churches want growth, they must turn back to Christ and the Bible. They must stop allowing known sin to go without rebuke. They must stop trying to please man, and seek to please God.
Do not be like Laodicean church in Revealation, who was lukewarm, and spit from Christ’s mouth. Choose Hot or Cold, but choose soon. Our world is working towards its last days. Choose to be on Fire for Christ, or turn away completely in coldness. The choice is still yours, but do not pretend that being warm, in the middle, afraid to take sides, will save you someday.
It is time to wake up churches. Go back to the Word. Call sin what it is, and call to repentance in love. Do not hate the sinner, but do not ignore the sin. We are all equally depraved without Christ.
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