I like this video and it does highlight a lot of things that are true about church. The reason I love church so much is because I’ve got an inkling of what God wants from it and is crafting through the different trials and afflictions that beset it from within and without. I love reading the blogs that get us to explore more about the nature of church to get to the heart of the fact that if our aim of worship is Jesus in personal relationship with external impact, then it makes sense that the Body for which He died is likewise meant to be relationally built.
It’s tragic that it happens to get bogged down in rituals and customs of man more in line with maintaining a status quo that inhibits relationships rather than allows them to grow and blossom.
It’s tragic that it gets bogged down in strategies and schemes more in line with a franchise as if people are products and making services so clinically driven without any room for face-to-face and heart-to-heart and more concerned with performance and eliciting temporary highs from situation.
It’s tragic that it gets bogged down so much in that which matters little and doesn’t skim the surface of the heart of knowing God and building together that people will spend years in there with no change and no exposure to that which can change them, leaving people dying in the pews as well as outside those ‘church walls’.
I’m grateful, though that this is not the complete picture of the church. I’m grateful that the full picture sees people growing together with a passion for God that infects their every element of life. I’m grateful for those communities of grace that put Jesus as the priority and so find it of more importance to know their brother/sister is fine and is willing to hold themselves accountable for the hard things in life. I’m grateful for the flawed efforts of those small churches persisting in their expression of love for God that doesn’t have its own web-site, building or much of a name in the community. I’m grateful for those mega-churches that still concern themselves for the spiritual welfare of each individual. I’m grateful for those who love the church and read God’s plan for it and gets excited about the marriage feast of the lamb.
No the church isn’t like any other human institution or organisation – the church is God’s project and the Bride of Christ. That in itself makes the church something worth appreciating through the good and the bad.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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