New Church Revelation

As some of you may know, I have been heavily involved in a local church over the last 30 years and thoroughly believe in it. So this isn't simply a gripe session. But like many before me, I have become less and less enamoured with church as we know it because so much time and energy is devoted to Sunday mornings (1.7% of the weekly time available), while real Christian life is being lived outside of church the other 98.2% of the time. Why should 90% of the resources be devoted to less than 2% of the week? Especially since every survey taken in the last 100 years details that the vast majority of conversions are the result of one-on-one relationships.

The same is true for grwing in character and maturity ... it's a relationship thing. Aside from the obvious; our culture has come to expect it, and we seem to be clueless as to what else to do, I believe I have an answer ... or at least some insight. What I've come to believe is that the church (the north American church at least) doesn't really understand that God established it this way for a reason. It isn't really all about Him, although that's the established pretext for it, and that is certainly what we've been led to think ... but I think God established church to see if we'll actually love one another.

From what I've experienced in church, from having been a part of it off and on for about 50 years, is that we do a really lousy job of loving one another. We can easily ask "How are you?" on Sunday when we meet, but God help us if someone should actually reveal a real problem, especially a particularly sticky one. We seemingly do a reasonable job of giving sacrificially to others, provided we only have to have minimal contact with them and they demand no more time than we have budgeted to give. It's the way American missions are conducted; a neccessary annual effort to support those less fortunate so that we can feel better about ourselves and justify not being involved in other things. In essence, this is very much like cell phone texting. We call it a relationship but are very careful to remain superficial. We can text/Facebook/tweet our true feelings, but we never have to be accountable to anyone for the resolution of them.

There are a multitude of scriptures about love and what it means;

Col 3:8-14 "But now put ye also away all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: 9 lie not one to a14nother; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, 10 and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11 where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman: but Christ is all, and in all. 12 Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: 14 and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness."

1Peter 4:8 "... above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covers a multitude of sins:" Matthew 22:36-39 "Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 And he said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second like unto it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself."

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."


There is no weaseling out of this one. We are to love each other! So what is the contest before us? We will have to commit to love one another in the context of the church setting ... so that we can first change our 'church' culture, before we can ever hope to impact the culture of the world we live in. The vast majority of the witches in the Western North Carolina region are so because their spiritual gifting was rejected (not loved) by the church and were driven from it. So don't go blaming the devil for the shape of things! We do such a good job of judging others that we don't really need an enemy. God forbid that anyone in our club should screw up! They'll be barbequed before the sun sets.

Try loving someone today ... with no expectation of anything in return. Then see if you can keep it up for the rest of the week/month/year.