My Kids Mom

I’m sorry this is so lumped together – I can’t figure out how to get paragraph separations to work on this thing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.  It seems to me that there is a new wave of church fad right now. You might think it’s the mega church with people like Joel Osteen and others who are creating a massive empire out of themselves, but this is a less massive movement that has gone a little under the radar. It’s a following of a small “core” group of people who meet in a downtown or less-to-do neighborhood and call themselves a Church. This group of people is almost always under the age of 40, usually in and around their late twenties and early thirties. They have felt a calling toward the inner city and feel that the larger institutionalized churches aren’t meeting the needs of the people living there. Usually you will find them on Saturday nights or Sundays in a building that doubles as a place of business. The pastors of these churches are often the counter culture types, who call themselves a full time pastor but have ties/partially own the business that is running out of the building they are using for their church. (And I don’t mean that condescendingly, I mean it simply as a fact.) I have a lot to say about these churches in general so I’m going to try to organize my thoughts a little.  I’ll start by saying that I acknowledge that all of these churches are individual and usually not associated with one another (there’s no formal “denomination”) but there are often a LOT of similarities between them all. Such as the ones in the previous paragraph.   My first issue: Isn’t the place of worship supposed to be sacred?  Most of these churches operate out of a building used for business every other time that the church is not using it. (Or even at the same time, the church just might be in a different room from where the business is operated) The building may also be rented out to different artistic venues, such as concerts, art shows, theatre productions, etc. I believe that tying a business up with God’s house is a very dangerous line to walk upon.  Jesus showed how strongly he felt about this when he displayed his righteous anger towards the money changers and those who were selling their goods in the temple. He specifically said in Matthew 21:13 “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a robber’s den.’ “ Many will argue the other verses where it is written that Christ does not dwell in buildings but within Man, and a host of other scripture taken out of context, but one must ask: if all God cared about was what is in our hearts(and not what we do), why would Jesus have had such a severe response to what was happening in God’s house? Shouldn’t we have the same perspective as Christ and be sure that God’s house is kept sacred?    My second issue: Where are the older and wiser? Older doesn’t always mean wiser, I know that. But I know a whole lot more people who are wise that are old, than people who are wise and young. It seems that these churches rarely have anyone attending that are over 40, and definitely not over 50. They also often don’t have anyone under 20, except for the young children of the 30-somethings that make up the vast majority of the church body. I think this younger generation have excused all older and wiser people as stuffy, controlling, and set in their ways and have made off to do their own thing. They forget that within that demographic are a lot of very dedicated Christians who read their bible daily and have been for at least 30 years and have been on this earth long enough to recognize the Truth from a lie. These 50, 60, 70, 80, even 90-somethings have a LOT to give to a body of young believers, and I think this is a crucial part of the body. Think of a body of Christ as just that – a body. If all you have is a bunch of eyes and legs, it doesn’t make for a very complete body.  My third issuse: Speaking of Christians, why can’t I call you a Christian? This new trend is not exclusive to the city church, but I felt like touching on it because it’s in the article that drove me to write this post. Many Christians are coming up with new words to call themselves because “Christian” has got a bad stigma to it. They are forgetting that Christ himself told the disciples that people weren’t going to like them or like it when they came around. If you are a Christian (or whatever you chose to call it) and aim to be Christlike, and like the disciples were, people aren’t going to like you or the message you have anyways, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself. Every last disciple except one was killed for their belief! Being persecuted for who we are in Christ should be readily accepted, it means we are living the way that the men and women of Christ’s day did, not something to be ashamed of and try to warp so that people don’t hate us as much. The definition of Christian from Webster’s Dictionary is “one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ”. And so if the shoe fits…. My Fourth issue: Misplaced Respect (OK, more of a general issue, but the circumstance applies to the city church and is relevant in it’s example to other like churches) I think the word respect is overused. And I think it has lost it’s meaning. The article that I referred to earlier said something that I thought was just completely backwards. Here it is: “After a screaming rock session with offensive lyrics, artists approach him (the pastor) saying, “Thanks for showing us respect. Most people don’t respect us.” One of the core values of <insert church name here> is to grant dignity to everyone they meet.” There is a big difference between dignity and respect!! The previous paragraph in the article was highlighting what goes on during a typical Sunday morning, where they invite their artists to “share what’s in their soul, even if it’s dark and unbiblical and then we communicate respect” so I’m quite sure that this particular band played on a Sunday morning during a church service. How is it respectful to God to allow something like this to disrupt the time He set aside for us to show him worship and praise? It’s not. It’s also not respectful of this band to play in this kind of setting – in thinking that being allowed to play would be a demonstration of respect on the behalf of the people who are allowing them, they have fully disrespected the people allowing them!! It’s so backwards! A better way to reach these people is for the pastor to do the leading on Sunday morning, and save people’s “expression of their soul” for another time, because doing it like this is disrespectful to God, nevermind the Christians who are supposed to be doing “church”.  Which leads me to my fifth issue. My Fifth issue: This is not what “church” was designed for. A question: When Christ went around from city to city, what was his purpose? Was his purpose to invite people to the temple or to someone’s house for church? Was his purpose to get to know Him so that they might want to hang out with him more? Was he careful not to offend, or politically correct about the way he spoke? What about any of his other disciples? How about Paul? Was Paul looking for popularity? All of these men were searching for lost souls. And I love that these inner city churches are considering the lost souls that are often forgotten by community and large denominational churches. I give them 100% kudos for that. I also believe that every person is unique, and individual, and therefore the way that we approach the gospel which each of them is unique and individual. However. None of these men used church as we know it to reach them. Reaching the unsaved was something they did outside of the meeting of the body of believers, which is what church is and should be. God cares about what we do on Sunday morning. He’s given lots of instruction about it in His word. A few different points about church from the Bible:

•  1 Tim. 2:5  We don’t need any human mediators between us and God – Christ is that man now.
• 1 Tim. 2:8  Men lift up their holy hands to pray, literally or figuratively
• 1 Tim. 2:9  Women should dress modestly and discreetly, and with good works
• 1 Tim 2:10 Women shouldn’t teach or exercise authority over men during church
• 1 Tim 3:2-7 Instruction regarding an “overseer”, either a pastor, bishop, elder, or whatever you chose to call it.
• 1 Tim 3:8-13 Instruction regarding deacons