WE’RE the Problem with the Church

It’s hard to admit that…right? It’s always easier to blame someone else for the problems we see instead of seriously looking to ourselves.

I remember when I was young my dad had this large magnet. I discovered that if you stuck it to the color T.V. and moved it around, it mixed all the colors together…awesome! One problem, it stayed that way. I thought he was going to kill me. So I did what any rational child does in light of his looming death; I made a list of excuses.

• This would have never happened had dad not brought home the magnet
• Seriously, who makes a magnet this big anyway…stupid magnet makers
• It was my sisters fault (that just seemed solid, it always did)
• Why is the T.V. on? The rule was, no T.V. after school

And on and on I went. We all sit around and talk about why we dislike our church and what they need to do better, but we rarely take a look at ourselves and our own hypocrisy. Truly, we as believers, the representation and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, are the church. We need to shut up about what we want different, and start making a difference in our own lives. With that being said here are the top 4.

1. The Church doesn’t care enough about social justice

Yeah, and neither do most of us. We talk about how important it is, and that we need more outreach to our community, but we can hardly carve out 4 hours, 1 weekend a month to serve. Heck, we don’t even have time to take care of our neighbors that live RIGHT NEXT DOOR!

2. The Church is not feeding me

Well, is church suppose to feed you or support you as you feed yourself? Most of the time we’re famished from not feeding ourselves during the week, and so we come to church looking for a seven course meal. Then, when it doesn’t “fill us up” the way we think it should we whine and complain that our pastor is “watering down the Word”.

3. I can’t worship at our church (it’s very distracting)

Well, King David danced and “exposed himself”, according to his distraught wife Michal, before all of his kingdom upon the return of the Ark of the Lord (1 Samuel 6). I can imagine that would be quite distracting. The point is, he didn’t care, it was about God…Period! Isn’t it true that we all have styles of music we like? Isn’t the reason we complain because the song wasn’t done the way we like it at the decibels that most please us? Isn’t it true we either like laser beam lights or we don’t? We either like fog curling off the stage like Thriller or we don’t. Wow…that seems to be a lot about me, and not much about God.

4. The Church is so consumerist

Well…so are you! P.S. how was your $5 Carmel Macchiato this morning as you drove in your $30,000 car while listening to your $200 iPod in your $180 pair of True Religions(if this is not you, there are other areas that I need not pull out…like your $8 lunch).

Here’s the deal: I have spent so much of my life complaining about what my church should look like, and what my church should do. I’ve realized, I’m the reason that my church doesn’t serve enough. I’m the reason that I don’t feel fed and full in the Word of God. I’m the one who makes worship about what I like and don’t like instead of being about who God is. I’m the one who is doing all the consuming so that I can’t be generous. And because I’m the problem, it affects the church. Let’s begin to work on ourselves through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, and watch the church become what it should be.