You suck at being a Christ Follower (a self observation)

Thu, Jun 26, 2008

Ok we’ve all dealt with this at one time or another.
You get to church, most likely sit in your regular seat, drink your regular coffee and pray to God that no one bothers you while you wait for church to start.
What a good attitude we have, (talking to myself here too), it’s no wonder we have a bunch of consumer-ish church goers that cannot see beyond last week’s power point snafu.

What can we do to change this default living in the church today? Absolutely nothing. That’s right, nothing at all. I say this because I find that consistent pessimism leads to effective optimism. You can’t do anything about it if you yourselves (church leaders/worship leaders) don’t change how you go about doing “it”.
You may wish it was different, often pray to god <-notice small "g"-> but it still isn’t doing anything. Is God not showing up? Does he not care about your services and the abundance of ushers you have. Or maybe He is displeased with the layout of your bulletin, or that fact that no matter how hard someone tries to push papyrus on the church goers, they still don’t feel that the church is being authentic.
It would be amase-zazing if churches would look beyond the boarders of right and wrong ways to do church, and stretch out in to the unknown-ness and outright un-tameness of God. To actually subvert the “usual/that’s how we’ve always done it” mentality and strike gold as a unfiltered expression of faith.

Couple things to think about as you squeeze your stress ball:

1. Unify: The stage was invented to keep people away from the speaker or entertainer. Lose it, if only in your mind. Become one with the people you are talking/singing/praying with. *Nut Shell: show them that you, as a church body, are gonna get into the chunky grandma gravy that can be “your” souls, because that is where healing happens.
2. De-Stagnatify: Singing songs only gets you so far. Kind of like turning on your car, pressing the gas but not avoiding a potential killing apparatus’s, (namely stagnation). Try and make sure that the pulse of where the church wants to get to is the pulse you are leading with.
3. De-Crappify: Sermons with points are just that, often boring drawn out word slobber that lulls people to day dream more than action. Lose them.
4. Conjugate your Virbs: Love Wins to put it bluntly. After everything you said or do, if I find you at Chipolte, Applebees, Chick-fil-A, In-IN-Out (you go there because it is a christian company). In the course of this you are being rude, loud, obnoxious, trying to convert your waiter or waitress by drinking as much soda as you can to take advantage of the free refills while you try and skip out on a tip. We as a church are about as flimsy as a reed blown in the wind when it comes to actually loving people without an agenda. Oh God will have His way, with or without you but you know it would be a lot more satisfying to actually put into movement what he started on the mount.
5. Un-Fluffify: Start talking about things that really matter. If you have a spiritually immature church, is that their fault or yours? You will only help your church and yourself by going deep and wide. Stop being a pyramid scheme, ask questions. You don’t have to know everything. If you don’t ask deep involving questions you show your church that it is ok to act like that too, which only breads contempt from the mature Christian’s and laziness from the immature ones.

As you can tell I broke my own rule by giving you 5 points. That Just Happened!

This post was written by:

Josh Lee - who has written 59 posts on The Fold.

Contact the author

1 Comments For This Post

D Rho Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:07 am

Josh I really like your boldness and your honesty here. I pray everyday that more church leaders would listen and dialogue with their critics. Too often we are lazily dismissed as negative dissenters, or divisive narcissists, or even un-Christian!

These reasons you explained are really the ones that answer the question of “Why I out from the Sunday church meeting?” Many would say that I’m now “church-less”, and “have forsaken the gathering of ourselves together”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me address those two notions:

First, about being “church-less”:

When did church become a meeting in a building led by one or two people for an hour on a Sunday? Have we forgotten that the Scriptures teach that church is people, built together like one person (namely Jesus Christ)! The church gathering is simply there to express this reality - it was never meant to be a performance.

In fact, now that I DON’T have this 75 minute chunk of passive, sponge-like inactivity which is so often labeled “church”, I no longer feel the excuse of having done my Christian deed for the week by attending a service.

Some would tell me that the service is designed for the young seeker. That’s fine I guess, but why insinuate that I must attend every week to be a “good Christian”. Simplifying a church gathering into being just one thing both limits God and stiffles real spiritual growth. What has happened in several churches is that the gathering has become a “product” that a few professionals produce for un-believers, hoping they’ll buy into our belief system and become regular attenders - thinking that somehow attending a church service every week will transform their lives.

We ought to be looking and searching the Scriptures for the reality of the early church gathering and its purpose. Did Jesus hold church services like we experience them today? I think we all know the answer. His method of reaching the lost and making disciples was the same: long, hard, authentic, sharing, open, messy, close, intimate, real relationships lived in the natural flow of life.

Second, about “forsaking the gathering of ourselves together”:

I am still very much a part of the church, because I strive with every fiber in me to follow Christ, and I still gather with fellow believers to edify each other in that striving, and I still look to engage in every opportunity to love people on the outside of the “Christian bubble”. I actually do this moreso now than when I was a “regular attender”! The modern day church service actually hindered me in this. Everyday now it seems I’m challenged more and more by the notion that I AM THE CHURCH, and that if I don’t engage my neighbors, my co-workers, or my community with some form of Christ infused relationship, I’m not a Christian at all. Which is quite the scary truth for the Christ-follower!

You might really enjoy a book I’m currently reading called “Pagan Christianty?” by George Barna and Frank Viola. It addresses all of your five points. I’m both enjoying and fearing reading this book!

D Rho Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Josh I really like your boldness and your honesty here. I pray everyday that more church leaders would listen and dialogue with their critics. Too often we are lazily dismissed as negative dissenters, or divisive narcissists, or even un-Christian!

These reasons you explained are really the ones that answer the question of “Why I out from the Sunday church meeting?” Many would say that I’m now “church-less”, and “have forsaken the gathering of ourselves together”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me address those two notions:

First, about being “church-less”:

When did church become a meeting in a building led by one or two people for an hour on a Sunday? Have we forgotten that the Scriptures teach that church is people, built together like one person (namely Jesus Christ)! The church gathering is simply there to express this reality - it was never meant to be a performance.

In fact, now that I DON’T have this 75 minute chunk of passive, sponge-like inactivity which is so often labeled “church”, I no longer feel the excuse of having done my Christian deed for the week by attending a service.

Some would tell me that the service is designed for the young seeker. That’s fine I guess, but why insinuate that I must attend every week to be a “good Christian”. Simplifying a church gathering into being just one thing both limits God and stiffles real spiritual growth. What has happened in several churches is that the gathering has become a “product” that a few professionals produce for un-believers, hoping they’ll buy into our belief system and become regular attenders - thinking that somehow attending a church service every week will transform their lives.

We ought to be looking and searching the Scriptures for the reality of the early church gathering and its purpose. Did Jesus hold church services like we experience them today? I think we all know the answer. His method of reaching the lost and making disciples was the same: long, hard, authentic, sharing, open, messy, close, intimate, real relationships lived in the natural flow of life.

Second, about “forsaking the gathering of ourselves together”:

I am still very much a part of the church, because I strive with every fiber in me to follow Christ, and I still gather with fellow believers to edify each other in that striving, and I still look to engage in every opportunity to love people on the outside of the “Christian bubble”. I actually do this moreso now than when I was a “regular attender”! The modern day church service actually hindered me in this. Everyday now it seems I’m challenged more and more by the notion that I AM THE CHURCH, and that if I don’t engage my neighbors, my co-workers, or my community with some form of Christ infused relationship, I’m not a Christian at all. Which is quite the scary truth for the Christ-follower!

You might really enjoy a book I’m currently reading called “Pagan Christianty?” by George Barna and Frank Viola. It addresses all of your five points. I’m both enjoying and fearing reading this book!

The Fold