To church or not to church...

I have not regularly attended a church lately. Honestly, for almost two years I have been erratically attending three different churches. I grew up in a mega-church, so when my wife and I started looking for a new church before we were married we visited a smaller church in different neighborhood that was the same denomination. We went sporadically and then went back to our old church. My wife was pregnant when we got married at this church. To say we created quite a stir would be an understatement, and in the midst we received what I consider unbiblical counsel from the senior pastor. We immediately stopped attending and began to consider our options.

After we visited the smaller church, I decided we weren't going to visit any other churches for a while because I did not want to "church hop". We also knew that, since there were no couples our age, the smaller church would not be a good fit, even six months later. So we decided to visit another mega-church, this one of a different denomination. I began to feel spiritually energized but my wife wasn't quite convinced. She warmed up slowly and eventually we decided to go through the membership process.

I had been enamored with the way that this pastor clearly presented the Word of God. He said things that cut straight through the comfortable trappings of modern American Christianity and yet still managed to speak quietly and calmly without making you feel like a terrible person. He has the ability to encapsulate the entire message of God into a singularly moving experience instead of focusing on one aspect and losing sight of another. He reintroduced me to my Creator in a way that made me actually want to know Him instead of running the steam roller over the doctrines that were already implanted in my heart.

Tell me, what is the value of learning how to balance chemical equations if you never introduce the two chemicals to each other. You can never know if you're right if you never test your hypothesis. Growing up, it was all about knowing things about God, sermons on this attribute, or studies on this spiritual discipline and the delineation of the benefits of it. And for children, it is certainly important to give them this knowledge so that they can understand their experiences with God as they grow and mature. However, it's not enough to simply hand them this knowledge without showing them how to apply it. And I rarely, if ever, saw this knowledge at work.

Instead, I saw programs designed to reinforce the same things that had been taught before and more people being indoctrinated and fastened to the pews by the lack of powerful conviction. I remember hearing my dad respond to someone who had commented on how they were convicted by a sermon. He said, "I just wish I were convicted to action." This seems to be the problem with American churches. They are full of feelings, but those feelings fail to produce anything that noticeably sets them apart from the hoards that assemble on college campuses and in stadiums every week.

I received a mailing from the church I grew up in. The pastor of revitalization wrote the cover story of this particular edition and recounted the story of a church that attended one of their revitalization conferences and then held an event for the community. They prayed that they would have good weather and that God would "show up". Around 200 people cam to the event and 13 prayed to receive Christ.

Nothing against this church and their revitalization effort, but how long will the American church be satisfied with mediocrity? 13 prayed a prayer? And that's impressive? What happened to people following Christ by the thousands? I would assume their response would be, "Well God just doesn't work that way any more." I would counter saying that the church doesn't work that way any more. And, yes, I am implying that the church has strayed from the purpose for which God intended it.

My desire is that the church return to the purpose for which Christ established it. We should heed the warning in Revelation to the church at Ephesus:

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Let us not become enamored with numbers or programs. Let us not spin idle words concerning temporal issues of little importance. We are not to act as God's public relations team, communicating what God thinks about every movie or political or social concern. We are to share God with all the World. We are to be His children. And what son or daughter doesn't tell everyone about how great their dad is.

As long as church is a place you go and a thing you do, it will have little power in this World. A 6.5% return on an investment will continue to be lauded as long as programs replace relationships. Only when we stop concerning ourselves with the numbers instead of the people will the numbers really indicated the power of God in us. And the people will show the love of Christ. After all, isn't that how we are to be known?