Two real life stories
A very intelligent and humble man of God, someone who I call my spiritual mentor (not a title I give out easily at all..) has a falling out with another member of church who is known as a sacrificial worker at church. Both start off as friends, now they hardly speak to one another
A choir leader one day passionately cries out to her assembled choir after having an emotional meltdown: "Where is the love?!?". An elderly matriach stands up, and bitterly says in front of everyone: "In this church ? - there is none!".
I am not making these events up. They happened and it is more than sad. It is tragic because by the edict laid down in 1 Corinthians 13..as a church, we stand condemned. We can be known for our great music, talented musicians, fine programs or deep pockets...but if we have not love, we are nothing.
Nothing. Go think about that for a moment
It means all that we talk about and pat ourselves on the back is all for nothing, it is in vain.
People come to church because of the people. And they hope to find love from those people. When they don't get it - they leave. The music, the sermons, the big carpark...they are fine but they don't do one bit about addressing that hollow area in the human heart that cries out for meaning and fulfilment. As Christians, we should know that this area is exactly a fit for God. Not an inch too small or big. Just right. And as representatives of Christ on earth, we should be reflecting that.
But do you know what I see?
I see a church that is filled with back stabbers. People who don't have the guts to say stuff to your face but to whisper their frustrations to each other. I also see people with skin as thin as Filo pastry. Offend them once - and they consciously tick you off their list of Christian brethren. What? You think you and I are going to be able to avoid each other in heaven for eternity?
There is no reconciliation because it is not preached from the pulpit. No one takes it seriously. Exhortations to love each other fail because we conveniently read that as " I love who I want to". This can only be remedied when we have a culture of reconciliation. Nelson Mandela did it for South Africa - preventing bloodshed. Unfortunately, he's not likely to preach at my church anytime soon
It needs hard preaching, a mixture of love and wrath. A serious call to repentance and a reversal of what has been the dominant culture for decades in this church; apathy, coldness, inauthencity, a lack of veracity, cowardness, a lack of faith. It's all there. Harsh words? Nothing even remotely compared to what our God will say to us on the day of judgement when we stand in front of him
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14 comments:
i agree with what you say. its sad but true that the church is like dat. sometimes want to evangelize to others also hard...coz when you tell them about love, they see the opposite in church...our credibility is going down the drain....>.<
for me, the worst part of church is the fact that even here, i cannot be confrontational? we're all supposed to be happy-little-people and you're not supposed to "offend" anyone...
true...we have become 'softies'...maybe its the sermons where a lot is emphasized on having a good life...>.<
Chris
I once made the comparison between church and martial arts. These are two areas were neuroses seen in most people can not only be tolerated, but even celebrated and nurtured. This is not healthy
In my time, you get to see that weedy, geeky guy walk into your dojo and he is harbouring fantasies about learning some totally destructive art that will allow him to lay waste to those dumb jock alpha male types and get the girl. And when they find a real martial art that involves them having to go through a lot of pain; they opt out, preferring to live in their fantasy world or they go about finding another school that allows them to foster this delusion
The church can be the same. Sick people do go to church. But instead of healing them, we go about telling them they can gain power and secret knowledge and techniques ( see the parallel with the above?). And humans being imperfect, we use this power to lord over others and our neuroses still remain; they even grow
Authenticity involves confrontation but few are willing to do it or accept it. It's against human nature. And as the Bible keeps saying, human nature is essentially flawed.
A church that takes the opposite view of human nature (that it is essentially good but just needs some tweaking) is in danger of fostering the exact problems it intends to eradicate
That is why evangelists must know what to and not to say when evangelising a non believer.
If I were a non believer and someone were to tell me that my life would be better, God will answer all my prayers and those stuff that anyone would want to hear. Good stuff that is. And after accepting Christ, I find out that this is all... partly lies from the evangelist, I would definitely dislike the religion, and the evangelist too :P
Like being a Christian is the only way to heaven, I don't think that is a very nice sentence to say to non believers.
Jason, the thing is that we have the truth but the it hurts. Any way you look at it, there is no 'nice' way of saying that Jesus is the answer and that by following him, you will be happier but your life may be turned upside down
That's why evangelists have a tough time and I totally respect that. But i think as Christians who should know better, we don't even want to investigate what the next step is. It's like we are cotnent with Level 3 in some videogame and never want to progress from there
yeah. Some christians wanna evangelise trying VERY HARD not to hurt the non-beliver. so they say: "no, you dont need to believe in Jesus to go to heaven" Ive heard my church friends saying these words to a non believer during camp before. Its sad that these people claims they are christians when they dont even know the base of their beliefs.
".... that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"
thats the truth. the ultimate truth.
mei yan, that's the tough part. There are Christians that say that you can go to heaven without believing in and on Jesus. And they use an argument called Universal Grace; i.e: a loving God cannot send people to hell and even if he does, it will be the very worst kinds of people (like mass murderers etc) while your nice Auntie down the road who gives you cakes, gets a pass into heaven.
It's a nice argument but there are too many verses in the Bible that point to Jesus being the way, truth and life. Too many.
While it is true that only God knows who gets in. And he knows each person's heart. We know what is the way. And we would be liars if we proposed some other way just because we fear offending ppl or want to be liked.
The Gospel offends. It's a fact. We just have to deal with it
The problem with most evangelists/Christians is that they place themselves higher than other people. Be it of other religions or same.
They go, "I've experienced Jesus more than you did" and so on... Confusion of being boastful and being proud.
They forget the fact the God made everyone equal.
I didn't know I used The Joker as my profile pic...
Well, "Joker", the opposite should happen. Christians should be more humble knowing that it was only by grace we came to God
But man being man (and woman being woman :-) ), pride comes in almost immediately; making us sound all arrogant and puffed up instead of meek and humble
I know I struggle with this part myself.
Everyone does. Haha
Future Rock Star signing out! Haha!!!
what i find really fascinating is that Jesus/John the Baptist/Paul simply said: "repent! and believe! you sinners!" (not really that lah. something like that) and the people starts to believe. They didnt go nicely to these people trying hard to share the gospel. They were stern. Of course the Pharisees didnt like it lah, just like some people nowadays if you will to tell them straight at their face. But Jesus simply condemned them, saying hypocrites and all.
haha. pride. yerr.. wish there was no such thing. Its what makes men/women fall easily
.
Maybe they were throwing a big tantrum ??? Haha so people got scared
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