I had a hard conversation with friends over dinner last night about the focus, mission, and stewardship of the the American Church. This conversation leaves me with a few thoughts that I would like to put on the table.

It seems that the modern church model is to talk about a dream of community and discipleship, while spending millions on facilities that will bring in the masses for the Jesus show of Sunday mornings. This show generally consists of uninspired singing coupled with lecture style preaching. In churches where people rave about how great the "worship" is, I usually see a place where the Spirit of God has been replaced with flat ironed hair, 110 db of sound, and intelligent lighting. This reaction in worship is to the experience itself and not to the Lord. I doubt if many of the same people if placed in a poorly lit room with just their voices to express their worship through song would have the same reaction. This means that their reaction in worship is not to the idea that they have been redeemed but is only a testament to the fact that they attend a better Jesus show than the church up the street. The second part of the service is the lecture style preaching of the word that is tired and generally ineffective. The teaching and preaching of the word from the pulpit has become the pinnacle of the modern church. How well our preacher preaches defines whether or not our churches are a success. The pervasive thought is that as long as the preacher does not say anything untrue then we have heard a good sermon. We as the church have not been called to just hear truth, we have been called to act on truth as a body. This, I feel is where the problem lies. The call is to simply come on Sunday morning, not to give your life to the people around you. We must have a shift in focus.

The church has been deeply affected by American individualism. It used to be that a community would gather on Sunday morning to sing and hear a message and these things would strengthen the community that was already there. This model was effective because the community already existed. We now are scrambling to invent community in our churches because we have come to the realization that there are a bunch of strangers gathered in a room together in churches nationwide. The afore mentioned modern sermon usually culminates in a challenge to the body, but even this challenge is usually directed to the individual. How to pray better, how to give better, how to have success in your personal battles, are the types of topics given from the pulpit today, and we are usually sent home encouraged to think about what we have heard in the privacy of our own homes throughout the week. This is proving over and over again to be ineffective because the church was never meant to be a place to go once a week to simply hear a good sermon! We are to be the body of Christ. How many millions of dollars do we have to spend on building and aesthetics so that more and more people will come to the show, before we see that the money is being wasted and is creating a mere shadow of what the church is meant to be.

I believe that the church is the physical representation of Christ in the world today. To each other, as the church gathered, we exist to spur one another on towards Godliness and good works, and to the world as a whole we exist to minister the love of Christ through service and love. If these two things are true then we must make some observations about ourselves.

1. We have been sold a bill of goods that says we must present a hip and cool environment on Sunday mornings for unbelievers, so that they will come to "church" think Jesus is cool and get saved. This model is stupid and we are wasting our time and money on this goal. We come together for each other, to encourage one another towards Godliness and good works. Which brings us to the next point.

2. If the first statement is true then why in the world are spending the kind of money we are on modern Church construction. Why would God need for us to spend this kind of cash to encourage each other spiritually. One reason, among many, would be that we consider our pastor on Sunday mornings to be the only one who can give nuggets of wisdom for the church and so we must build huge sanctuaries that thousands can sit in to hear one man and then get in our own cars and go home. The pastor is to lead the local congregation but should never be the only voice of instruction and encouragement. This leads to arrogance in the pastor and laziness in the body. Sounds familiar. This in itself is a huge conversation that needs to be had and I know I may have oversimplified it here, but I stand by the basic idea that we have elevated the modern preacher (not the preaching of the word...completely different) to a ridiculous level. He is to be the number one servant of Christs body not the CEO/motiational speaker.

3. Since we are building these huge buildings, and outfitting them with every technological bell and whistle money can buy, we are crippling our ability to be the hands and feet of Christ to our communities and the world. Here is a quote from and article I read, "It would cost roughly $3 billion to keep all the people in Ethiopia free from famine. We have spent nearly seven times that much on new church construction in a year." We are in essence saying to the world that it is more important for us to have luxurious padded seats for our butts to sit on, great sound and lighting to keep us "engaged," and ornately decorated sanctuaries to prove just how much God is blessing us than to feed you so you won't die.

These thoughts are scary to me because if only a couple of them are true then we have some serious repenting to do as a church. We have wasted God's money on our own ridiculous need to pampered. It is also scary because it means a major shift in how we do church. Our priorities must be to reach out to one another with the gospel and then take that same message to the world. Jesus said that they will know Him through our love. And love in the New Testament is shown through action. If someone is hungry feed them, if they are thirsty give them water. They will see Jesus through this kind of love, not the here's a track pray a prayer have a good life kind of love.

Like I said I want to start or continue the discussion. Let me know what you think and how we start changing the whole thing so that Christ can change the whole world through us. I'm listening.

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