Field of Dreams

I do not hate church. I love the church, I just don't understand today's thinking. The church is not getting the job done, and the church would rather pretend everything is fine. The true barometer for how the church is doing is the world outside them.  If 11 disciples (I don't count Judas!) turned the world upside down, I would think 111,000 churches should at least register a blip on the radar screen.  Instead a great hero of Christianity today is Quarterback Tim Tebo, who works on Sundays, does underwear commercials, and cancels a church he was going to speak at because the Pastor is for traditional BIBLICAL marriage.

The church is supposed to set the tone for the community around them and it should morally restrain the perversion around them. It used to do that. Christians internally have God controlling them so they live different than the lost person, but before this morality governed the hearts of men around them. The Bible was respected by those who knew God and those who didn't. Today, the average Christian doesn't even read it.

I have been to all kinds of churches and denominations and I think that we are radically different today than the churches seen in the book of Acts. First, we are almost completely preaching a man-centered humanistic gospel of life enhancement. We are not preaching on sin, and we are not exposing YOUR sin, and we are not helping you REPENT of your sin. That may make you feel better when you are there, but you won't thank us when you end up in hell forever. We instead story tell and are more entertainers and polished smiley motivational coaches and ear tickling Fish Oil Salesmen. We repeat cliches and mantras and cut and paste certain Bible verses and wax eloquent but God sees right through it. Instead of using the Law and Holiness of God to convict you of your sin and bring you to repentance and salvation, we use drama and music and rah rah rah messages and pump you up or make you cry or make you laugh. And we draw you emotionally and you make an emotional decision to go to heaven. Then you leave unchanged and maybe come back if they were warm and phony, I mean warm and friendly. And if you come back enough they give you a job or put you in the choir and you never leave, though 50 years from now you die still the same and end up in hell with the flat out Satan worshippers. Seems unfair, but the Bible warns us about false prophets. Today we are told not to question anything and not be harsh or judgmental. I will go with the Bible.

The church keeps you busy, bogged down with activities and puts you on guilt trips if you dare put your family first. They reward the YES men and the ones who worship the Pastor and are willing to drink the kool aid. They say search the scriptures but they don't expect you to. They then absorb you in their building and tell you that if you don't tithe your car will break down, and then they get enough of you and build the church bigger and bigger and soon there is so much work around the church and so many bills, you can't expect to now go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature now. The Bible commands us to go, but once the church gets big enough, it is big enough for everyone now in the whole world to pay a visit, so who needs to leave the comfortable air conditioning?

I am being a bit harsh, but folks, we need to get back to old fashioned Christianity. We are so prideful today that we think God is for our covetousness and pride and that he is going to strike anyone dead with multiple lightening strikes if you even think something bad about HIS church. The problem is HE has left most of the churches and is outside the door knocking to be let back in.  The great thing about American Christianity is you really don't need the Holy Ghost when you have CCM music to work them into a frenzy.

In the scriptures, God tears the hide off the Shepherds who feed themselves and says WHOA to the hypocrites and pharisees. God holds leaders to a higher standard and today no matter where I turn if you take a stand the leaders want you gone. I was kicked out of the Megachurch the Chapel's Vintage College group for addressing some doctrinal issues and asked to not come back. I was screamed at by a men's pastor at Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church because I told him I was grieved over my lost Catholic family going to hell. He yelled at me for daring to judge Catholics and said he thinks the Pope is saved. I think that Pastor needs to be saved. I entered the Independent Baptist Church expecting a breath of fresh air, but I am still choking from the polluted cloud of dirt I found.

When the church awakens, then America may have a chance. The world is asleep because the church is asleep at the wheel. The church is asleep because the Pastors are asleep. Our job should not be to keep the members happy and comfortable on the plush stadium seating. Our job should be to make them uncomfortable and make them want to get up and GO YE into all the world and PREACH THE GOSPEL to every creature. Note the Great Commission is GO YE.

The problem is the Church has become a field of dreams.  Mostly this refers to that baseball Kevin Costner movie.  He was told "If you build it he will come."  So he built this baseball field and bottom line baseball players from long ago came to play and cars lined up to watch.  Now we build our churches and wait.  And wait.  And send out flyers.  And wait.

We are not supposed to sit on our blessed assurance and wait for sinners to come.  Lost people don't go to church, but we have turned the church into a keep lost people busy and fat and happy and they will come, and then you can get a bigger building one day and get even more lost people in to fill the seats and pay the bills.  The problem is you don't build a church to gather in the lost goats.  Those not saved are spiritually dead, walking corpses in a spiritual sense.  The church is not supposed to be a morgue you fill with dead LOST  people and when there is no room you then expand.  The church is supposed to be a training facility and prepare it's SAVED members for WAR.  Church members are supposed to then go out and fight and reach the world. 

It is not if you build it they will come.  IT is GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE.  EVERY includes the majority who will never enter the church walls.  Why is the church today too busy to see that?  And too busy to care?