I guess I should qualify some things I have posted previously. My brother-in-law, Rob, brought up the point that God can work through any church to reach people. If I alluded to the fact that I think all churches are ineffective all the time, that was a mistake. I am a firm believer that any type of church can allow God to move. I am just afraid that we as humans get too caught up in the politics and the appearances we want to make to others that we edge God out a lot of times.

My Dad is one of the people I look up to in the sense that no matter what was happening in my church growing up, he made sure his youth group (he was a youth pastor) was getting solid teaching and preparation for the world outside. There are always individuals that can see through the mire and uphold what is truly important in the life of the church. I want to be one of these people but I really don't want to put up with the politics. That's why I am looking for a new way to worship and serve God in a fellowship of believers. I hesitate to say "church" because I feel western civilization has misconstrued the biblical meaning of the word. The church is Christ's bride, not a building where a group of people from a certain denomination get together and worship God how they see fit. We are all the church. Every person who believes that Christ is God's son given up for our sins and has accepted that gift constitutes the church.

On occasion I have heard of people meeting in a local bar or restaurant or in a park and just loving each other and worshipping and serving God. I love that idea. This kind of unstructured meeting of people to praise God is what I believe may reach more people of my generation than traditional westernized church. Church has gotten such a bad name that even some believers refuse to step over the threshold of a church building. Think about unbelievers who are searching for something more. If "Chrsitians" aren't even willing to attend church, why would they want to. We have to show God's love to others in ways we aren't thinking of outside of a church building. They have to see something different in us and especially something genuine. If we do this, I believe more people can be reached than ever before.

To go along with my previousentry I recently discovered a band by the name of Flyleaf. They are a band out of Temple, TX. I know the lead singer/writer, Lacey Mosley, is a Christian and in one of their songs on their self-titled debut album she sums up how I sometimes feel about Christianity.church today. The song is called sick and I am going to post it below. If you like heavy music this is a great band to check out. They have been on tour with Evanescence and Staind in the last year and they are very powerful. If you like Evanescence or Staind you will definitely like this band.

excerpt from "I'm so Sick", words and music by Lacey Mosley/Flyleaf copyright 2005

I will break into your thoughts
With what's written on my heart
I will break, break

I'm so sick, infected with
Where I live
Let me live without this
Empty bliss, selfishness
I'm so sick
I'm so sick

If you want more of this
We can push out, sell out, die out
So you'll shut up
And stay sleeping
With my screaming in your itching ears

I feel like Lacey is lashing out at complacent Christians who think that simply going to their posh churches on Sunday morning makes them good Christians. She is trying to get Christians to see that we have got it all wrong in how we practice Christianity. I love the line that says "let me live without this empty bliss, selfishness". When I am walking through churches I can almost feel the emptiness that is produced by people doing church to make themselves feel better about being pretty hypocritical throughout the week. This act is selfish in that it is all about making you feel better. Also, in the line that says "we can push out, sell out, die out, so you'll shut up and stay sleeping", this reminds me that we have lost the whole point of why we go to church. The church is asleep right now and is content to go through the motions and I know that it will eventually die out. I am totally guilty of both of these things for I don't know how long and it does make me feel "sick". I may be totally misinterpreting what Lacey meant by this song but that is the beauty of music. It can have different meanings for different people.

I was reading my friend Shon's blog yesterday (you can find it at http://shonsoapbox.blog.spot.com) and he gave some statistics about how people of the X and Y generations are not going to traditional churches anymore. It totally doesn't surprise me that these generations don't buy into church anymore. For some reason, the younger generations seem to have a great ability of determining whether or not people are being genuine. Like I said in my previous entry, churches feel a show or a play you go to once a week instead of a place where we can come together and worship and be a family of believers. All the church wants is your "tithe" or "offering" and if that doesn't happen, you'll get an obligatory sermon on the importance of tithing just so the church can pay the bills. We can totally see right through sermons like that. Why does a church need a big ornate building? Why does a church need to have a budget? Why can't we find a way to worship God as a group of people without racking up debt through mortgages, rent, utility bills, etc.? There has to be a way of doing away with most of that.

Now, I understand there needs to be a pastor and a board of leaders for a group of believers, that's biblical. But whatever happened to full time ministers living in poverty and depending on God for their needs. Now, I know that that dependance on God comes through our tithes and offerings and I am all for giving back to God. It just bugs me that the money I give doesn't always go back to God's work. It sometimes goes for a fancy car for a pastor or a downpayment on a huge house, or into a fund to save money for an even bigger church with more state of the art facilities, or some other useless expense when it could just go to missionaries who are getting the message of God's love to people who have never heard it or the poor and sick who truly need it. Granted, part of the money we give for tithe and offering does go to these people but if Jesus were walking around today what do you think he would spend his money on? I don't claim to be perfect in how I spend my money but I am also not a pastor or a board member of a church who gets to make these decisions.

All of this just gets me to a point where I know we need something new in the way we fellowship with others and God. It just feels like church is getting out of control and running farther and farther away from God. God has been taken out of the picture and replaced with money and men's wisdom.

Have we become the Pharisees and Saducees? Are we those who would have begged for mercy for Jesus to be saved from the cross or would we be the mob who called for the release of Barabbas? Do we really want to give up a life of luxury and complacency for a life of poverty and struggle? These are questions that I ask myself and am scared of what my genuine answer is.

Denominations

My wife, Kim, and I have recently started looking for a new church to attend. This process is hard for me since there are things from my past which keep me from being excited about the whole church experience in the first place. Being a pastor's kid really showed me the inconsistencies and problems in the church at a very young age. To be honest, I am surprised I even go to church anymore.

Having been in church my whole life, I feel like I've heard everything, seen everything, and done everything (at least that I want to) the church has to offer. One of the first churches we visited in this search was Lookout Mountain in Golden, CO. The pastor there, Peter Hiett, is an amazing speaker unlike any other preacher I have ever heard. He gives the most compelling sermons and proposes ideas that makes you want to get into the Bible and research everything he says. I can say, I have encountered very few other preachers like him before. A couple of weeks ago he gave a sermon that touched on a topic that has bugged me for as long as I can remember. DENOMINATIONS. I say "touched" on the topic because he didn't really talk about denominations, but it got me riled up enough that I went home and did my first studying in the Bible in years.

What I found out was pretty eye-opening for me as to why I have a hard time with Christianity today, at least the way the western world practices it. I started out by finding out the actual Webster's dictionary definition for denomination.

-- Denomination - a particular religious body.

That of course was pretty obvious to me, so I looked up the word particular.

-- Particular - regarded separately; specific

That led me to the word separate.

--Separate - 1) to part, become disconnected 2) to withdraw 3) to go in different directions.

So, I took these definitions and looked at a particular point in pastor Hiett's sermon. He was saying that as Christians we should not be divided and take sides with groups. In first Corinthians 1:10, the author, who I think was Paul, said let there be "no divisions among you." and in verse 13 , Paul proposed the question, "Is Christ divided?"

So, I took the word divide, which is in both these verses and looked up the definition for that.

-- Divide - 1) to separate into parts, sever 2) to make or keep separate.

So, for me, this ties into the whole idea of denominations. Denominations divide and separate Christians into different groups and that is exactly what Paul was preaching against. I feel that denominations rose out of men's wisdom instead of God's and it bugs me that I have to shop for a church and worry about what denomination believes what. I read a little further into I Corinthians and the next section, verses 1:18-2:5, and it tells how we are not to depend on men's strength or wisdom. Well, I think that a big reason why churches split and form new denominations is due to someone, or a group of people, thinking they know how to interpret the Bible better than someone else. Wouldn't this be depending on men's wisdom instead of God's?

The glaring problem now is that so many people depend on denominations for their living that we can't do away with them. Churches and denominations are big business nowadays. They are definitely run as corporations, which is another whole discussion. Just take a look at places of worship and all the high tech media equipment used by churches, especially the mega churches. The church has truly bought into western materialism. Churches feel they have to lure peole by their fancy buildings and state of art facilities. I feel like instead of collecting an offering they should just have a box office in the front and charge admission. It wouldn't surpuise me to see something like that in the future. God knows those pastors need their big houses and fancy cars.

Anyway, these are just some of the problems I am having with the modern church and why I feel Christianity is ineffective in this day and age. We as Christians have conformed to worldly ideals and that has seped into how the church is run. It's really sad.