(is 'pre-post' anything redundant to say?)
Andrew's stirred things up with his post on mega churches again.
I don’t know much about them really. I don’t even come from suburbia. We live in rural USA. FBC is a congregation of around 100 or so on Sunday mornings.
Always a sermon/pep-talk. Always some old hymns. Always stand up-sit down-turn around-shake hands. !0 to 15 minutes of coffee or juice and drive-by ‘fellowship‘. Leadership pretty much like most places. Pastor doesn’t have all the control right now. They let that happen with the previous one though. He did everything. Him and his wife wanted the service planed like months in advance. The church learned from that I hope.
I’m sure there are plenty of relationships going on between folks of FBC. I would hope so since like 1/3 of them are all related. It’s very much, “things have been done this way. We will continue to do them this way.” When it is seen that their needs to be change. When it is seen that the congregation isn’t growing, numerically or spiritually, the order of the service is changed. We’ll add this new program. We’ll call them teams instead of committees. We’ll do a study out of this new workbook.
Singing the same drab songs year after year, setting in the same pews, facing the same ’show’, re-paving the same parking lot, doing the same thing only in a different order, without any growth spiritually has led me to here.
My wife is a young Christian. So am I really. I have two kids with another on the way. We don’t really get out much right now. My kids need to interact with other children. My wife expresses that she needs more than what she is getting right now spiritually. She’s not big on the service either. She enjoys and gets something out of the hour of class/‘conversation’ in that group that meets afterward. I guess I just wish I did too.
The thing is, it’s not just me. The folks that don’t even notice anything wrong. Don’t acknowledge it. So many of them are just attendees of an event. An event that doesn’t do anything more in affecting their lives than coming back to the same event next Sunday. Unchanged. Where change happens it is so minute, even in my own life, that it does not measure up to that which Christ’s Spirit has called us out to.
I struggle right now, not because I am battling on whether or not to go back to FBC. Not because I am angry at God or FBC or all our fathers before us that allowed this to happen. Tozer’s right. It’s no one persons fault. Neither is anyone free from blame. I am guilty of settling for someone else’s drab life as a ‘christian’ or lack there of. James’ words mean more and more to me as I grow. My faith without works is dead where it stands. My life in churchiosity is completely unaffected and therefore ineffective. If it is affected it is affected like it was by drugs. Slowly doing what is cool and feels good becomes routine....gives way to habit....then I’m hooked. My life becomes mere existence because I was sucked into the illusion that I was living to the fullest when I was only really feeding my habit.
I need to physically go face down in the dirt/snow to God and repent for my lack of life. For neglecting my relationship with Him. For mimicking someone else’s bad reflection of Him instead of walking with Him day by day and moment by moment and just being infected with Him.
I stir and I ache in my bones for more of Him. For real face to face relationships with people who ache in their bones. With people who don’t want to settle for a show. Who want to live it.
I want to get dirty! I want to do things that I am not comfortable doing because it is what I must do to love you. I want to learn to start conversations. I want to learn not to preach. I want to learn not to just talk about this and how to get up to do something where and when something needs done. People are hurting all around. I want to learn to be slow to anger. I want to learn to love my wife and kids better. I want to learn what you like on you pizza. I want to learn what makes you cry and what secret fears you have. I want you to learn mine. I want to be ‘post-protestant’. I want to be catholic (little ‘c‘). Both/And. I want my life and our relationship to be full of Christ so that it will infect the community. I want to learn to live and to enjoy living. I want to learn to shut up and listen to..........
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