The Point Of Church

Today I was in the middle school service thinking that I had not talk with god in like two or three days. And as I was wondering why, a scary thought came over me. What if my faith was only there because everyone around me was a believer? In other words that my faith was only rooted in the people around me and that I only felt God when I was around others. Of course this is partly true, we as Christians are not meant to follow Jesus on our own. We are meant to be apart of the body of Christ. But I was afraid that I just believed because only other people are around. This is a scary thought because people just like everything else (other than God) can be taken away, people can fail me but God will not, people can stop loving me but God will not, people can forget my name but God will not and can not. This is so comforting and frightening at the same time, if people can leave me and forsake me then what am I left with? I guess the best way to put this is, if I were to leave and go to a place where I did not know anyone and for the sake of the point there were no Christians there, then would I still follow God? This is something I think we all need to wrestle with, because God is always moving us and we either will fight it and go the opposite direction, or go with it. Either way we are moving. And I believe that sometimes we will have to rely just on God. I am by no means saying that we need to leave and go to a place where there are no Christ followers to be one, although if you are called and or you happen to be there then you need to go and follow him even there. And I am not saying that community is bad or that you need to leave to prove that you are following him, on the contrary, I think that without that authentic vulnerable community you are not a complete Christ follower. But what I am saying is this community is for support, if you are to go out and make disciples of all nations then you need to get refueled, Christ although his burden is easy and his yoke is light we are bound to this world and a slave to sin, if we are to be free of it then it calls for surgery, and the sergion is Christ himself. And if Christ is the sergion then the church is the hospital. Church was never meant to be the once a week guilt band aid that we so often make it. Church has two main functions the first is it was always meant to be a place where you could seek God with others and get filled up, and then after you were, go out and feed, clothe, nurse, visit, and love others who are both with Christ and without him. We need (myself most of all) to live like this, there is no room for debate. God wants us to feed his sheep, to love his creation, and to find his still lost children. You and I no matter what our talents, gifts, and abilities are, if they are not being used to do these things then they are not being used for God and in fact they are in opposition with him. To quote one of my favorite authors Rob Bell “you can either bring heaven to earth or you can bring hell”, he is saying that every choice we make either brings more of haven of more of hell. By the way, just in case you were wondering there is no neutrality. If you pass by a man who is hungry and do not help him in some way and it is possible that you can then you by doing nothing just brought hell on earth or at the vary lest you let it continue, by letting this injustice continue without putting up a fight, well you just let a little more hell on this earth. So if church is not meant for just once a week guilt relief, and I am meant to go out and feed then how do I do this? Well I am glad I asked, like I said earlier you need to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick, imprisoned, and mourning. This is also not debatable you need to do this; Jesus loved these people and spent most of his time with the sick and hurt. Look around and I am sure you will find more then you can handle.

Now this brings me to my next point, not only are you supposed to feed others outside of church but you must also get fed outside as well. Confused, well now community is not the only place where Jesus got fed. But also he would often leave his disciples and go to be alone with his father. When I said earlier that the church serves two main functions I said the first but not the second, this is the second. It is a venue to serve, church has always been meant to help heal the world. And this is why you need to let God feed you outside as well as inside. You see God meant for the christian lifestyle to be just that a lifestyle. You don’t call it a lifestyle if you are only doing it every once in a while. God wants to be in your whole life not just your Sunday mornings. This is key. God wants you to go out and change the world, to make it better. So these are some suggestions for your lifestyle: prayer is big. The bible says to pray without ceasing. Two, spend time in silence listening to God. Three, be contently in the word of God. These are by no means new but are three of the most important practices in the Christ life. I will say that silence (at least for me) is one of the hardest to master. If you are wondering why these three practices would help fill you up again then I will tell you. Praying is the act of talking with God, prayer is powerful. I have experienced its effectiveness up close. I was at an evangelism teaching camp called OGN this past summer. It is a camp where you go and learn how to effectively communicate your faith and then you go out and practice by talking with total strangers about your faith. Well I am not only bad at this but I am terrified of the thought of doing such a thing as to put myself in a place of embarrassment and rejection. So it was my first time going out to evangelize and I was starting to get nerves. I had been praying all day for God to give me boldness and fearlessness, and as I was getting on the bus to go, I felt almost instantly all the nervousness leave my body and mind. It was one of the coolest answers to prayer I had ever experienced. Although it was a cool thing this is not even close to the real power of prayer. Next silence, as I said this one is the hardest for me. The reason for it is so that God can talk back to you. In my own life things can get so noisy and loud that I just don’t hear God’s voice. “But wait,” you might say, “Cant God, if he wanted to, just talk above the noise?” Well yes, but what would that help? There are two reasons why he does not yell above the noise. One is that God is a teacher and a father. Tell me, what would we learn if he just yelled at us all the time? Whenever my father would yell I would either be so scared that I would forget to listen, or so mad that I chose not listen. Either way it was not effective. But when he sat me down and lowered his voice then I would listen because he would be less scary and I am more willing to listen if someone is having a calm discussion with me rather then a yelling constantly. God wants to have a discussion with you, and he wants to teach you how to walk the straight and narrow. Two God wants us to come to him because we love him not because he yelled at us so much that we just gave in. God has given us free will and does not want to invade our lives unless we say so. It is an act of love and obedience to come be still and listen to your heavenly father. It says in the bible that God speaks with a still small voice, so we must take time out of our day to be still and listen. The third and final feeding practice is reading your bible. This one is by far is the easiest one to win the case for. If the bible is the inspired word of God, and it told us how to live, love, pray, and learn, then shouldn’t we read, study and learn how to live like it says to live? The bible is where God has put all of the promises he has for us, and it is where he says how much he loves us and wants to use us. I mean come on, this is a no brainer. God has given us the guide book for not only life, but after life. These are of course not the only practices or disciplines God has given to us. If you want to know more about the ones I have mentioned, and the many more I did not, then I would point you to a book that is in my opinion the best book beside the bible to get these practices. It is called (The Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster) it not only tells you what many of them are but it instructs you in the application of them into your daily life. If you have any question comments or concerns feel free to talk to me.