There are two assumptions I could make about my last post. Perhaps, being a Sunday, it didn't get the attention of my previous two in this series. Or, what I suggested took people by surprise. Yes, I suggested that Sunday morning (or weekend) church services be reduced to praise, worship, celebration and prayer. If that sounds like moving backward instead of forward then you might want to re-read the post.
When we try to be all things to all people we end up being nothing to anyone. The weekend church service as it is currently practiced in a majority of churches is not growing the Church. Because it was never intended for that purpose. For far, far too long we have been relying on a tool to accomplish what it was never meant to do. Add to this the fact that what we're doing on the weekend is often wrong and just plain unnecessary.
Jesus told his disciples to go. But just like many of us they were inclined to cluster together. While they took courage from each other, they were not effective in reaching the world with the Gospel until they split up. Gathering on a weekly basis was Jewish tradition and one that most likely started while in captivity in Babylon. The synagogue was a place where the Jews contemplated the loss of their temple, their exile from Jerusalem, and the mistakes they had made. More importantly they spent decades, then centuries in their synagogues mulling over the words of the prophets and their history hoping to discern what to do so that they would never again offend God and be punished with exile. This led to an endless web of rules, regulations, interpretations, restrictions and requirements that every Jew was expected to meet so as not to raise the ire of God. Sound familiar?
We have unwittingly recreated the synagogue.
A place where we gather to hear learned men (and women) remind us that God has rules we must live by. We are urged to learn these rules and hold fast to them. We contemplate all the ways in which we might offend God and thereby fall out of His favor. We are taught that we must understand baptism correctly or else. We must receive communion properly or else. We must follow the Ten Commandments or else. And, most deadly of all, we must adhere to church (denominational) doctrine...or...else!!
Or else...what?
There is now no more or else, to paraphrase Romans 8:1. "There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," is what it actually says. There is no need to gather each week and contemplate whether or not we're getting it right. There is no need to tell seekers what right looks like. In fact that kind of 'teaching' is, perhaps, the most destructive thing we as a church have done. You can't hear those kinds of messages week in and week out without becoming obsessed with 'being good'.
We are not required to 'be good'. Through Jesus Christ we are restored to our rightful place as children of God. The debts are paid, the ledger is cleared, all sin is forgotten and any obligation to live under law is completely eliminated! Paul pleaded with people to understand this.
Yet we keep retreating to our synagogues each Sunday and try to figure out how to make God happy. Many walk in fear of mis-taking communion or losing a child before they get baptized or (fill in the blank with what YOU fear getting wrong). Our witness to the world has included don't dance, don't drink, don't play cards, don't go to the movies, don't swear, don't...
We who know the truth have accidentally turned the joy of Jesus into the obligation of obedience. Along the way we have learned to avoid too much contact with sinners lest we be dragged off the path of this obedience and make a mistake that will upset God.
This is the church the world sees. Let's be brutally honest and admit that this is what goes on in far too many churches each and every week. So, what if weekend worship was just that? What if it was an all out party celebrating our freedom from sin, death and the devil? What if we took seriously the fact that all the requirements of the law have been met in Christ Jesus...while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us before anyone really understood who he was. (Sometimes I wonder why we now feel obligated to understand him in order to keep what has already been freely given while we were ignorant.)
What if all the competing and conflicting doctrinal positions of all the different denominations just didn't matter? That would mean any of us...all of us...who have even just glimpsed what is ours in Jesus could get together whenever we wanted (even on a Sunday) to multiply the joy with singing, communion, praise, testimony and prayer.
Of course we'd want to also get together and enjoy lively discussion about what the Holy Spirit is revealing to us from the Word. We don't need biblical experts telling us what to think when the Spirit is at work revealing God to each of us. Having mentors who will encourage us in the faith is great, too. But none of these things are what we do to reach the 'lost.'
And that particular topic is for my next post. So let's pick up next time and look at this simple truth...the key is relationships. It's people not programs, life not liturgy, friendship not formality. And Jesus said, 'Go!'
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