How can this happen to such a heavenly based and sourced
entity? It is an old story. Brennan Manning has I believe captured the essence
of the problem: The church at large has replaced the Christ with something
else. It is no longer a group of people called to a common Savior and trying
the best they can upholding one another. It is something else. It is
organization. I once told my congregation that the Kingdom of God is not a
business and it cannot be run like one. What do I mean by that? We are not here
and called to:
1>
Build empires
2>
Self promote our ministry
3>
Recruit people to our cause.
None of the above is what Jesus intended. Yet this is the
exact framework of most churches and ministries. I know, I was a part of the ‘business’ at one time. I had a conversation with
someone very close to me this past week. She sent me something and asked me my
opinion. Basically it was that philosophy could be extracted and synthesized from
all religions and come up with standards to live by. A lofty endeavor but in
thinking about it, I realized that religion is why one would want to do this.
You see religion is the problem. There is nothing good in it. We should not
label ourselves as religious people. We are followers. We are not to present a
creed, a moral code or even a written codex. We are to present Him. Jesus…
Alone and unadorned to people. We need to allow ourselves to be honest and
forthright and tell people we have no agenda, we do not see them as a recruit
to our cause but a lost soul in need of help and it is the compassion of our
God that has allowed us to cross paths. That’s it. We make disciples not by
teaching but by example. This was the method of the early church. The problem
is we have let a worldly concept into our thinking as it concerns our callings.
Here is a thought: What if a city’s entire Christian population
met at a park in the city and held a service where nothing was done other than randomly
picking from the group people to testify about their life and how Jesus changed
them. How important and how great that day was. Maybe someone would talk about
a healing or the re-uniting of a family. At the end a bucket was passed and the
proceeds given to feed 5000 children starving in Africa….what if that were to
happen every week for a year. How many hospitals, churches, funded missionaries…LIVES
would be altered.
What if Christendom were to do this? It would change the
world. Jesus would be exalted above every other name.
Yet we build our ‘big box’ ministries that do nothing but
make us feel like we are doing something and all the while the planet’s souls
are passing into eternity with out one hand of comfort, without a message of
hope…without the extended hand of Jesus. We are our brother’s keeper. We are to
visit the sick, the old and those in prison. We are to be Jesus to the prodigal
and those caught in sin. I ask you where is the church? Where is the body of
Christ? It is behind its own walls doing nothing either too holy or too satisfied.
We have lost our mission. We have lost our vision. We have
lost Jesus.
There is a darkside of Christ. This is the darkside. Coming
from a dysfunctional religious group myself I know the self deception. We spend
so much time perfecting our walk we cut ourselves off from a world that needed
us. Those that sought to break out and tell the lost about Jesus were run out
on a rail and discredited by the Corporate heads. You see, it has become a
business and its industry was keeping the people so busy with their own
personal walk and how to perfect it, the life was spent as nothing more than
burying our talents in the ground.
So what do I do now? Well I am honest. I am a sinner and
have problems but Jesus is my hope. He takes me for the clay I am and makes me
a better person. Not more holy, not more disciplined but more compassionate and
filled with the mercy I have received. This is the light and as time goes by
and the church wakes up, they will stop building monuments to themselves and
once again travel the Damascus Road.