Playing Church

The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. She is His new creation by water and the word. From Heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride; With His own blood He bought her and for her life He died. The church, the bride of Christ, in my lifetime, has gone through an evolution which our forefathers would hardly recognize. Instead of the Church changing the world, the world has changed the Church. From the apparel, conversation, music and even rhetoric coming from the pulpit, the Church differs little from the local civic club.

At the University Cathedral in Los Angeles, children are permitted in the church only when they reach 12 years of age. Until 12, they have special programs designed for them. After 12, they can accompany their parents to the worship service but are required to sit with their parents until married. This, I agree with, because teaching (the red meat of doctrine, not pablum for infants) cannot be understood by small children and many times, advanced theological sermons have a tendency to turn young people away from the gospel, not toward the gospel.

The old Quaker church, which I attended as a child, would be a mystery to today's “drums and drama, bells and smells”. Modernistic congregation who come to church in flip flops and shorts. The sincere Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc., attended the worship service in their “Sunday best”. Not only did they dress-up in their Sunday best but their decorum, their Sanctuary voice was in keeping with the charismatic devoted commitment of real Disciples redeemed and committed to the belief of their doctrine, not dressing down, not talking and acting like the world, and the activity of a nightclub. I believe that Faith is a verb, action, based on belief, sustained by confidence. Those who have the confidence of their foundation are there to worship with conviction, remembrance, and with the spirit of truth. Today, the tares have taken over the church, unbelievers in the pulpit and the pews.

In this era of the purpose driven church where the watchman has gone to sleep, and the enemy has taken over, (you will find a record of this in Isaiah) the Joel Osteen's and other technology wizards, of the wicked use our blessed Lords message to entertain. Amid the laughing and clapping, the joking and jockeying for prestige and ratings, the sacredness of the separation of Christ's disdain from his distractors becomes a mockery, leading 75% of all college graduates (reared in church-going homes) to the golf course instead of gospel study.

Perhaps there is no better example of the Paradigm of todays activity than the church activity of Acts 3, where a man disabled, lame from birth, was taken each day outside the temple at the gate called Beautiful where he begged from the temple-goers (evidently religious people entering the temple for worship). Peter and John, when asked for contributions from the disabled man instead of giving him money, was miraculously healed and as would probably be the case in today's church activity, the church goers were greatly surprised that this man begging for 40 years was jumping for joy and clinging to those who had delivered him from such a prison of total defeat (only one who is totally disabled, particularly for 40 years, knowing the embarrassment and harassment of passers by, knowing the torture of physical abuse could possibly understand). Like today's church members, they are willing to put a little change in the collection plate believing this is their only benevolence toward the goodness of God.

We are certainly told, in no uncertain words, that much more is required by Gods justice and Gods redemption. Pleasure is a matter of the physical, joy is a matter of the soul. This writer, who for 40 years, had known the rejection of disability, knew the absolute joy of physical redemption. I'm thankful everyday of my life, that I know the absolutes of right and wrong and that I know the difference of joy and pleasure. The average church member, playing church, thinks their signing a card, adding their name to a church role perhaps even going through the initial ordinance of Baptism gives them some ETHICAL claim on the mercy of God's sovereignty.

Christ, looked at the white wash mausoleum and rightly described them as full of dead men's bones. Have you ever looked around your congregation, singing “Of how I love Jesus” and think, “Dead people can sing” (“God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” - Roman 6: 2. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” - 1 Peter 2: 24)

The servant attitude, both from the pulpit and the pew is largely responsible for today's lost church. You will know you have a servant attitude when others treat you like a servant. The tithe is the Lord's whether you give it or not. God expects you to glorify Him. If the Spirit of Christ possesses you, you are a living epistle. Remember, Christ told us that many would hear, “I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:23)