The Church 2

“Praise the name of the Lord;

praise him, you servants of the Lord,

you who minister in the house of the Lord,

in the courts of the house of our God.

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good,

sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.

For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own,

Israel to be his treasured possession.”

Psalm 135:1-4.

In my first post on the church, I started by reminding us that since the very beginning the church has had its share of problems.  I know -- it wasn’t a very inspiring place to start.  But, I do think it was an important place to start.  

As you might recall, part of the inspiration for this series of blogs on the church was the number of people who had in recent months expressed to me a concern with “organized religion.”  And, frankly, those conversations got me wondering how it is that we can, on a fairly consistent basis, mess up church.  

I mean, when I read the Bible it is obvious to me that church is supposed to be a simple, elegant and beautiful thing.  We are supposed to come together to worship God and to love one another.  How hard can that be?

And so, I decided to undertake an in-depth study to determine what exactly it is that causes churches to go off track.  This study consisted of a meticulous review of the entire New Testament, focusing particularly on the epistles that were written to instruct the struggling early churches.

During this review, it became abundantly clear to me that there was, indeed, a common denominator in the failures of each of the early churches.  And, I am convinced that this same factor is the cause of virtually all of the problems in churches to this day.  And, that common denominator is this -- PEOPLE.

You see, people have a way of messing up beautiful things.  In the worst cases, our sin nature can get the best of us.  We can succumb to feelings, emotions and desires that bring great harm to the church.  We have all seen it many times, haven’t we?  How many times in the history of the church have Godly men crashed and burned after giving in to their fleshly desires for lust, wealth or power?    

And, in the best cases we see imperfect men from time to time just making bad decisions.  Sometimes, even when we have the best intentions, the best of motivations, things can get off track.  

So, you may ask, why should anyone want to attend an imperfect church?  You may even be wondering whether at this point I too am disillusioned by “organized religion.”

Well, the answer to that question is an emphatic “no.”  For reasons we will get into later, I believe whole-heartedly in the local church and its mission.    

The primary problem I see with church is not so much the imperfections of men in a general sense, but our failure at times to stay focused on the main thing.  I think that church most often fails when we forget our "first love" -- when we forget that the primary purpose of church is to glorify God.  

Church begins to get off track when it becomes about us instead of Him.  And, I am not just talking about what happens when church becomes about us in some selfish sense.  I am not just talking about those situations when we come to church primarily to benefit ourselves -- to see what God can do for us.  I am also talking about church becoming about “us” when we think in terms of what we can do for the church or what we can do for the community.  

Don’t get me wrong, doing good works for the church and for the community is great -- but it has to be for the right reason -- there has to be the right motivation behind the doing.  At the end of the day, the true success of a church starts with a heart thing and with an attitude.  And that is this -- everything we do must be primarily for the purpose of glorifying God.

If you read through The Book of Revelation, you will see an interesting thing written to the church in Ephesus.  The church was doing great things.  They were doing good deeds, working hard and persevering.  They had driven out false teachers, endured hardships and had not grown weary.  But in the midst of all the good, indeed despite all of the good, they were criticized for abandoning their first love -- Jesus.

You see, a church can accomplish great things.  But none of that will mean a thing at the end of the day if the church is not first and foremost all about glorifying God.  Can you imagine what Sundays would be like if every single person who walked into the sanctuary had that attitude?  If the only thought in their mind was to glorify God?  What would that look like to you?

2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 

Revelation 3:2-4.

The Church 1

²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵ Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:24-25



Over the last several months I have had conversations (electronic or "real") with a number of people who have become disillusioned with church.  These are not people who have lost their faith in God mind you, but instead are people who have lost faith in the institution.  They are folks who have grown tired of "organized religion."

Some of these folks have decided to leave the church -- at least for a time.  Others are searching for a new place to worship.  Still others seem content to stay where they are, but they lack any real enthusiasm and have minimal expectations of their church experience.

I would like to be able to say that the people I am thinking about were just complainers who are overly upset about trivial matters, or maybe people who are pouting about not getting their way.  But, unfortunately, that is not the case.

One of the folks I am thinking about has had an extremely challenging last couple of years.  None of the challenges she has faced were problems or developments of her own making.  But, in a time when she needed sympathy, consolation, support or understanding, her friends from her church met her with words of condemnation or judgment.

I have never done a series of blogs on the same subject (unless you count Christianity/God/the Bible as one subject -- in which case pretty much all of my blogs count as a series!) but feel compelled to do a series starting today.  And, the subject I want to write about is "the church." 

As you might imagine, I strongly believe that church attendance is a critical spiritual discipline.  While I recognize that there are times when church attendance is not possible (physical limitations, for example) I have no doubt that God desires for us to live and worship in community.  And, we will probably explore some of the reasons for that belief as we go along.  But, I want to start this first blog in what might seem like an unlikely place.

Both before His death on the cross and after His resurrection, Jesus promised His disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit.  (See John 16 and Acts 1)  And, in fact, on the day of Pentecost the disciples were baptized with the Holy Spirit ... and everything changed.  Suddenly, the church was clothed in incredible power.  Peter was transformed into a confident leader, many miracles were performed, and thousands were brought into the faith.

Can you imagine how unbelievable it would have been to have experienced the early church first hand?  What must it have been like to have known Jesus when he walked the earth in human form?  Or, if you weren't around to witness the cross or resurrection, what it would have been like to see Peter address the crowd on Pentecost (Acts 2), to see Peter heal the crippled beggar near the temple gate (Acts 3) to see Peter courageously address the Sanhedrin (Acts 4) or to see the apostles perform many miraculous signs and wonders among the people (Acts 5)?

And yet, despite the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit in the early church, despite the awesome display of wonders and miracles, the early church almost immediately began to experience problems.  As early as chapter 5 of the Book of Acts, we see Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, losing their lives for lying to the Holy Spirit.  In chapter six, we see that seven men full of spirit and wisdom had to be appointed "to wait tables" because there were complaints that the widows among the Hebraic Jews were being favored over those of Grecian Jews in the daily distribution of food.

In fact, if we look at the epistles of Paul and others, what we see is that the purpose or emphasis of many of those writings was to correct problems in the early churches:  e.g., 1 Corinthians (division and disorder); Galatians (false teaching or understanding concerning the law); Colossians (false teaching); 2 Thessalonians (idleness); 3 John (arrogance and control); Revelation 1 - 3 (various).

Now, I realize that this is not exactly inspiring stuff.  If you are struggling in your church it may be little consolation that the church has always had its problems.  Indeed, that fact may make you that much more frustrated with your current circumstances.

But, the Bible urges us to "not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing ...."  And, I believe that incredible things will inevitably come out of your consistent church attendance.  Because I can take no credit for it, I can tell you that I see incredible things happen in the lives of people in the church virtually every week.

But, part of the key to success is perseverance.   For some people I can see that church attendance has an immediate impact.  I have seen any number of people come to church who either had been out of church or were disillusioned by church walk out with a new joy after just a service or two.  But, for others God works more slowly.

I also think, though, that in order to get everything out of church that God intends, we sometimes need to step back and remember what church is primarily about.  Or, maybe that is something we need to learn for the first time.  So, what is the primary purpose of church?  Well, that will be the subject of my next blog.