I don’t really understand people’s disappointment with the church. Many “real” and alert, aware Christians say they are dissatisfied with the church as a whole in America. Perhaps, they just don’t like being an AMERICAN follower of Christ because lack of a moral church and too many cynical boundaries confine who they are. Well, what is moral? After we criticize society's hellacious acts that seem to mimic some Sodom and Gomorra tendencies and talk about the end times of the world, let's ask if we have ever been content, satisfied with it at all?
I say I don’t understand it because I really have a strenuous time with complaining about something, wanting it to change when we never have really known any different. Sure, in the 50s, we didn’t have women kissing women on national television, but we did have “no colored people allowed” signs hanging up in the windows at every other diner in town. In the 1850s, there weren’t boycotts and pickets of pro-life/pro-choice or gay marriage on the National Mall, but there were well-known brothels for men of all kinds and people hanging misunderstood women who were dubbed as "witches."
So what’s the difference. There have always been dysfunctions in society, in the church, in the country. It seems as though we become numb to what is obscene.
I believe, and I will insert opinion here that it all comes down to your own soul, your truth and where you find truth.
What is your foundation?
7 comments:
People can be dissatisfied with the American Church because they HAVE seen otherwise...it's in the Bible. That is their Truth, and it will not come in many other forms, or if it does, then it cannot be recognized unless one has read the Truth. And are we talking about the church in the sense of actual believers? Or people in America who put their names on a membership card? Because I think that makes a pretty significant difference in this analysis...love ya kins! Take care!
yeah yeah - membership card christians who blab about their complaints and define their relationship with God through the church.
thank you for commenting. respect your thoughts.
i really wanted you to :)
much love parkster.
I agree with Eric, Kinsey. As a believer my "Truth" and the source of It should be the Bible and Christ's example and nothing else. I am to be in the world but not of the world, which is a difficult thing. I like your point about complaining though, those who complain shouldn't waste their time, they should attempt to change things. The best way in my opinion of doing that is by example. The can complain and compare the world and America to Sodom and Gomorra all they want, but in the end it comes down to sin nature, the world has always been immoral and in excess. For the believer it is just a matter of separating oneself from the immorality while still trying to have a positive impact, following Christ's example.
p.s. thanks for posting your blog in your fb status, just found it today. looking forward to seeing your updates.
p.s.s the above deleted comment was me on a different account.
So where do you separate yourself?
What is Christ's example?
Within yourself, your thoughts, your actions or between you and others (non-christians, etc).
To not partake in their actions, yet love them, unreservedly as Jesus does to us, as he did with his disciples, and prostitutes as well.
HOW THICK ARE YOU WALLS BETWEEN YOU AND THE WORLD?
In the world, not of the world.
So one must need a foundation to relate to the world, people who don't know Jesus's love, yet not a boxed, bubble of a grounding to be numb to them as well.
This is a not an analysis.
This post is addressing people's (christians/non-christians) discontent with the the church and what it represents.
A friend and I talked of how if Jesus walked into the church, today, a normal, traditional church (preacher, worship, church bulletin, stage and seats before it, etc.), people would reject him as he had prostitutes and vagabonds trailing in after him.
This is talking about the focus and foundation of the church and its believers.
a simple question, what is your foundation?
Remember, you, as christians, read this, as well as people who serve gods that are not called Abba.
you know the truth, but remember, other people say they know the truth as well.
You've hit the heart of it for me as a Christian. My wall of separation, the line I draw between myself and the world shouldn't be drawn by me. It should be the same as Christ's, I should love the sinner; abstain from and abhor the sin. Now that may sound pompous or absurd, but the point is that I am to love them unreservedly as you said, and witness to them by the example of my life, which should be based on Christ's example in the first place. This is certainly much more easily said, than done.
There should not be walls between myself and the world, instead walls between myself and sin.
Jesus came to the earth to feed the hungry, he came to those who needed him most: the prostitutes, the thieves, and the vagabonds. He came to these people and through his example and his love he showed them the error of their ways, their sin nature.
Part of the reason why people are discontent with the church might be because it has become cliche. The majority of Americans attend or are members of a church, (at least on Christmas and Easter) the majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian. But how many of those are true believers, followers of God's Son?
Probably the vast majority of Christians, or those who identify themselves as Christian, do not know or understand the foundation for their church or their beliefs.
For me it is the Word, and Christ's example. And my hope is to witness His love and example, through the way I live my life.
In order to have a productive conversation regarding the Church, it is first important to have a deep understanding of the history of the Church, to dive deep into the theological structure of where it came from. To be able to understand the Jewish history of the temple and both first and second temple Judaism as a whole, which the Church was founded on to begin with. Paul, someone who might have had one of the largest impacts on the church other than Christ and who was an intellectual superstar, let alone his supposed photographic memory, grew up a Pharisee. A person with strict convictions to the Mosaic Law… so if there is ever a conversation about the Church, or about the truths of today opposed to the any Biblical church, please be aware of as many implications as you can with any such mere opinions regarding what should happen or what the Church “used to be.” Because-so many people don’t know what it used to be, even from reading Acts they think they know what it was, or what it was like… Fact is that as a nation, we have been becoming more and more stupid. We really ARE stupid and the media has continued to drain more and more from us, & Christians are just as susceptible if our status remains surface level, if we do not prepare ourselves… and because it continues to dilute our intellect or any sort of challenge academically, we grow closer and closer to surface level, only on Sunday Christians who are RARELY in the word, let alone are they in the word B/C they ACTUALLY want to just know their God a little bit more, where has that passion gone? OF COURSE there are problems with the church, and there are so many RIGHT answers to where we could start to fix it… my best “personal opinion” is for each Christian to evaluate the spiritual disciplines in our life that we were called to practice and to love the Lord with all of our hearts, souls and minds.. The problem is I honestly think that the majority of so called Christians in America have absolutely NO idea what that TRULY means…
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