If you have been saved more than six months it is more than likely that church is no longer what it is supposed to be. For far to many saints,church is no longer a place to be equipped for the working of the ministry and is instead the place of always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.
Somehow, church becomes our world. Sure, we venture out of it from time to time. We go to work. We go to the store. But we rush back into our safe house so we can get away from “them.” We kneel at the altar and ask God to deliver us from our jobs that have us in to much contact with “them.” We pray for schools so our kids won’t be influenced by “them.” Some go so far as to arrange church activities on holidays so our Christian festivities won’t be spoiled by “them.”
The big problem is that Jesus sent us to share the Gospel with “them” and that’s hard to do when we have no contact.
I have been here. When the center of our Christianity is church we surely know that we are missing the mark. As leaders, when we gauge believers by their faithfulness in listening to someone teach we have wandered off course.
Some believe that the problem is the structure of church all together. Many ascended to leadership in a church and saw major flaws with the leadership. Their hurts cause them to stay withdrawn because of perceived hypocrisies. Others have come out of the conventional church because of their belief in a better structure. They believe that the church is not an institution but an organic creature that is to be small and without ordained leaders. I am ok with that but many often leave the conventional church and don’t join anything else. As with the hyperchurched, these groups allow their church experiences to distract them from the Gospel as well.
I was once in the place that all of my prayer life was consumed with the horribly dysfunctional church that I was a part of. It seemed that all of my Christian life had to pass through that church mostly because of a controlling spirit that was channeled by the leaders. When I broke free, I almost was affected by it enough to quit church all together.
After one week of this my wife declared that this is not who we are. We are Christians and we go to church. I got plugged into a fellowship that is preaching the Gospel and reaching and teaching the lost. As I look around my current fellowship I see people who are both hyperchurched and hypercritical. The good news is that I am of neither group.
I refused to be distracted again, and so should you.
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