The Problem With "Church"

The Problem With "Church"

Ezekiel 47: 3 And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.

4 Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.

5 Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.
6 And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river.

7 Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.

12 And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.

    I am going to talk about this system we call “church”.

This church system has some major problems and after 1900 years this system is actually doing more harm than good.

I’m more inclined to protect the church than criticize it so I know this has to be an important word that the Holy Spirit wants me to teach.

   I know that the Holy Spirit is trying hard to wake us again. The true church is made up of individual Christians, walking in the perfect (mature, complete, finished) nature of Jesus. I realize that the true church is the body of Christ. Jesus is the head and we are the body.

    1)   The true church  understands what true growth really is.

   Our churches have adopted the system of business for themselves rather than the higher values of the kingdom of Heaven. The church system counts attendance and sadly, dollars at every meeting as its standard of growth, Big crowds, giant budgets, sprawling multi-million dollar mega-complexes, large staffs, professional offices, prestige and fame. If a huge crowd is attracted and a huge income is produced, it is considered a successful church.

        The actual statistics show that most of this “church growth” has only been rotating stock among churches. It is “steeple chasing”.  Growth in one church happens almost instantly when a new building is built to out do the church building down the road.

   There are not more people in church—they just migrated from smaller churches to larger ones. The total number of Christians attending church is declining. Even though we have bigger churches than ever there are fewer people attending church today than there were 10 years ago. We – are – pretending - growth.

        We have thousands of mega churches with superstar pastors with     entertaining and relevant music.  We have multi-million dollar Christian radio stations, Christian publishers, Christian TV stations, Christian bookstores, and Christian colleges.

  

   The church of Jesus must not become obsessed with this type of success. By God’s definition church growth actually means having a true, radical, mature walk in Jesus daily, individually, line upon line and precept upon precept, growing into the Christian nature that the Holy Spirit is calling us to become. Obedience is valued higher than success in God’s eye. God will always honour the obedient and righteous true church above the famous and successful.

2)  The true church knows that Christianity is not a product.

   The church system has created church goers who think that we are a bunch of shoppers. Christians have become “customers” looking to get what we want or we’ll go to the church down the street. We expect the church to meet all our needs, cater to all our musical preferences, entertains us, amuses us, impress us with clever sermon-ettes and create for us interesting videos and movies.

Ø          Today’s modern church encourages independence, scientific reasoning, results, education, goals, management, production and effectiveness.  Business methods are the new doctrines of our modern church. The church system we have produced runs as smoothly as a business …because it is a business. We have replaced the BODY OF CHRIST with the BUSINESS OF CHRIST.

   We have lost a very important ingredient. We have replaced the biblical covering of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher with a complicated structure of church staff, boards, deacons, elders and other variety of leadership titles.

3)  The true church is a positive witness to those around it.

        The church must stop the gossiping, back biting, trash talking and lying of each other in it’s very own body.  As the church representing Jesus we must cry out to the Holy Spirit to clean up our own sins of greed, our own sins of materialism, idolatry, lust, divorce and fornication that takes place right within our own fellowships.

   The church system is making less and less difference in the world around it. In a recent article: When those who do not attend any type of church were asked to define today’s church there was not even a mention of helping the poor, orphans or widows. There was no mention of going into all the world or caring for all of creation.

   When regular church attendees were polled there was still no mention the commands given to us by Jesus himself. The vast majority of the world is simply unmoved towards the church—they neither love nor hate it—they simply dismiss the church as not important in their lives. The world sees the church as judgmental nags who expect unbelievers to cry out for forgiveness for their sins while it ignores its own sin in its own fellowships. The church claims to be changing the world but mostly it is the other way around.

     We must no longer think that telling the world about Jesus is    enough. We must show them Jesus in us.  We must become a model of all God has called us to be. The true church is called to be a powerful witness to the world, But there is more world in the church today than there is church in the world.

         He is returning for a bride without spot or wrinkle. Nothing less will do for a God who is Holy. His son’s bride must be holy. God will not have Jesus unequally yoked to the world.

4)  The true church is a mirror called to reflect the perfect, complete nature of Jesus. 

      The nature of Jesus does not happen just because someone has “         prayed the prayer” or “goes to church”.  It is all about Christians who make a difference in the world after the prayer has been prayed.  It is about Christians changing the world around us.  It is about Christians who not only believe in Jesus, but act like Him. Our minds are being renewed. Our hearts are being changed

The life Jesus has called us to live must be set so high in priority that settling for a little bit of prayer now and then will never do. Our greatest desire must be to know Jesus personally.  Attending church a few times a month and dropping 10% of our pay check in the plate is not enough. We must desire to obey God’s commands in every part of our lives and increase the level of true commitment to each other. It is 100% or nothing.

We say we want to change the world, but first we must be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to put to death all of our ideas of what our church should be. Where is the passion to know all there is to know about Jesus?  Why is a true Christian walk so rare among us that when it appears the church considers it “radical,” even “dangerous?”  Where is the conviction over our sins?  Where is the appreciation of the sacrifice of the early Christian church? This must become the most important calling we have before we can even dare to call ourselves “church”.

James 1: ²¹ Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;

²⁴ for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

²⁵ But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
²⁶ If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.

²⁷ Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

   Jesus is not a product to be bought and sold. He is a way of life to be lived. It is the highest calling that one can imagine. It is life more abundantly. Let the Holy Spirit transform the church into the true body of Christ by first transforming us into the true nature of Christ. 

   Jesus has called us to be led of the Holy Spirit,  to use His spiritual gifts for the edifying of the body,  to allow the five-fold ministry to spiritually equip everyone of us, to ready us to enter into the Holy of Holies, blameless before our God and king who is holy.