The Church - part 1

Over the years the view of the Church has changed. At first it was an underground movement that suffered persecution. Later it became a power unto its own in Western Europe. Then it became fraught with schism and division. It has been reformed and then in many ways cast aside, yet still it survives.

Over the past couple of decades the Church (in the West in particular) has undergone some interesting changes. Its worked hard to go mainstream in an effort to win people over but today we see young people who have grown up in the Church are leaving at a record pace (5 - 6 times the historic rate) in their early twenties.

In the West many churches see themselves as competitors in the market place and as such they try to market themselves to people in such a way as to ensure that they get a lot of people into their buildings.

The message that has developed in the West (and in some respects in Asia as well) is that rather than focuse on the truth of Christ and the word of God churches have presenting a message that has been described as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

Moralistic - focuses on being a good person; a nice person

Therapeutic - the focus of life is being happy and the church is there to make that possible

Deism - presents God as distant and uninvolved unless you have a problem and then one should look to Him

We can see the differences in the message of many modern churches and the actions and words of Christ and His appostles.

Some have to come to referring to this version of the church's message as Churchianity rather than Christianity.

Those who recognize this difference are able to understand how the church's message does not match up with Christ's message. The end result is they see the church and by extension as being inauthentic (not real) and so when confronted by conflicting views (new atheist authors amongst others) they can't find real answers to their questions, are usually met with derision from members of the church for doubting and so leave.

We talked about how, as Christians, we ARE the Church and so its not a place you go or something that is in our lives for an hour or two a week, but rather it is the reality of our lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Matthew 22 says:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

We understand that God love us (Romans 5:8, John 3:16) but how do we love God?

1 John 2 tells us:

5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

This leads to a question and our second commandment. How do we live like Jesus? How do we love our neighbors as ourselves?

Matthew 20 says:

28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Also Mark 9:

35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

We are called to love God (obey Him) and to love our neighbors (serve them). As members of the Church to live an authentic (real) Christian life we are called to live a life of service to the Church.

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Links:

The Church as a commodity

The Leavers