In his post Swanny asks a great question:
So, what would happen to your spiritual life if “church”, as I have defined it above, just ceased to exist?
I know that will not happen, but let’s say it does for kicks and
giggles. Let’s say all “church” buildings are locked and banned from
use, and then all “Christian” conferences, concerts, and seminars were
no longer permitted, and all children’s youth groups are shut down, and
all men and women ministries disbanded.
Also, all presentations, Easter pageants, Christmas plays become
illegal, along with organized Christian counseling, food pantries,
church-based homeless shelters, crisis hotlines, and church-run
childcare & preschools. Then finally, every ordained minister’s
credentials are revoked under threat of imprisonment, and the vocation
of a pastor providing formal paid instruction to other believers is no
longer allowed.
So, would your “walk” with Jesus be serious disrupted if you did not have a “church” to attend this Sunday or ever?
Is your “Christian” life wrapped up in a building, programs, ministries, and meetings?
Mine was, and I got the heck out of that “organized religion”. And
you know who I finally found just sitting in the street, or laying in
the gutter… Christ.
Those are great questions and probably a lot more pertinent than we think (and of course the post attracted the warning against "forsaking the gathering"!). The days when we don't have "church" might not be far off. Many Christians have lives so wrapped up in the weekly rituals of "church" that I wonder how they would react if they couldn't "go to church" anymore.
Ask yourself those questions. What would happen to your life if you had nowhere to go on Sunday. Would you still live your life following Christ? Or perhaps would you start to live your life that way?
Interesting food for thought.
3 comments:
Arthur,
I feel this is a huge problem among the Body that I had to deal with, and I am sure others do to.
Thanks for posting.
Actually, I do not have a high view of how nobly we would act without "formalized" church. The people I know who boldly stated they were walking away from organized religion and institutional church usually end up severely diminished in their spiritual lives. I've seen it too many times.
I can't seem to find where the middle ground in this is. Suffer under the oppressive, compromised junk that so many institutional churches succumb to OR adopt "Lone Ranger" Christianity that ends up weak or wrecked altogether.
I'd say that organic house churches were the answer except the holier-than-thou attitude I've encountered in that movement is simply overwhelming and downright prideful.
Not a happy set of choices.
There is some validity to that concern re: the we have it all figured out attitude of some in the house church movement. It ironically reminds me of many of my fellow Reformed believers!
I haven't been to a scheduled church gathering in a number of weeks and I do ache for that fellowship but I am not interested in just "picking a church" and showing up. The real challenge is finding community with other believers without constraining that comminity to Sunday meetings.
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