Comes from Dan at Cerulean Sanctum and is a very convicting, somewhat sharply worded (and appropriately so) critique of the "what's mine is mine" mentality in the church.
Here is a lengthy snippet from the post, What Being a Church Family Means, Part 1:
If you were to ask me what we need more of than anything else in our churches right now, it’s to let those who have a need stand up during the service and make their request before the congregation. Why this doesn’t happen in our churches is beyond me. Seriously, what is the Church for if not to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters in Christ? And what can be a bigger burden than facing foreclosure or a a five-digit medical bill that can’t be paid?
Yet I continue to talk with people who suffer in silence. And I continue to hear church people tell me there’s no place for that kind of request in the Sunday worship service.
Bull.
Maybe if we got off our high horses such a time to share practical needs would wake us up to the reality that people in the pew right next to ours are suffering and that we Christians need each other. Maybe it would shatter our illusions of control. Maybe it would break the stranglehold of consumerism around the necks of too many of us. And maybe it would make us all more humble and drive us to be nearer to God.
Church is not about showing up to make an appearance, it is about community and family but we really, really don't treat each other as more than passing acquaintances that we spend an hour or two with a week. Dan is absolutely right, the lost are watching us and they see some of us living the high life and others of us living in poverty and what we say we believe doesn't jive with how we live. Many, many people say that Christians are hypocrites and guess what. They are right.
The world is watching. That should be the watchword for how we live our lives and how we spend our money and how we live with one another as the church.
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