The Church I See
The Church I see….
Do you ever get frustrated with the church, its leaders and just plain ole church people? Of course you don’t, but I do…with all of her issues and failures I still believe the Church, the body of Christ is God’s answer for the world. I hate some of the current trends I see happening with how we “do” church. But I also feel some of them are great improvements.
The Church that I see is not just a multi-million dollar building with state of the art sound equipment and expensive Hollywood lighting. It’s not that same building filled service after service with people all there to “see the show”, not a service perfectly run and flawlessly executed by the paid actors playing their parts.
It’s not programs and meetings and dinners. It’s not about a big Christian superstar who everyone “loves” and their 20-minute delivery of a speech void of the Word of God and anointing and full of “stories” told to motivate us. It’s not an altar call designed to emotionally manipulate me into repeating a sinner’s prayer and fill out a card that says their church just grew. The Church that I see is none of these things.
The Church that I see is people, a people whose lives have been forever changed by the message of the Cross. People that have made the decision to allow Jesus to enter their hearts and change them, a people that have given Him their whole life so that He can live through them, so that they can be His hands and His feet. People who have decided to become Jesus with skin on.
The Church that I see is a group of people who are dedicated to fulfilling the Great Commission, to go into the world and preach the gospel, heal the sick, raise the dead, and make disciples of all nations. A group of people who are willing to hurt with the hurting, cry with the broken and love other people into wholeness no matter how long that takes and how much it will cost them personally. And know it will cost you, cost you more than you want to pay, be harder than you expected and take time that you don’t think you have.
The Church that I see is a people who live like Jesus lived. What did He show us? He showed us how to love people, how to meet them at their point of need. His entire life was about doing what He saw the Father do and saying what He heard the Father saying. His only goal was to please God. He only wanted people to see God in Him and through what He did. Father forgive us for becoming like the world you called us to change.
Its just time; it’s time for us who say we love Jesus to represent Him and do just that, to get in the trenches with the hurting, to help our neighbor going through a divorce, hold the hand of someone suffering from depression, to meet the practical needs of people all around us. The Church that I see is a people willing to help the hurting, the broken, the homeless, the abandoned and the lost, a people who love others more than they love themselves.
It’s a people who reach out with what they have and meet the needs that they can. A people who take off their masks that say I am perfect and I have no issues, I have all the answers. The Church that I see is a people who love people, and desire to lay their lives down for them.
It’s time to stop being phony, counterfeit, plastic “Christians” and leaders and be real, genuine, honest believers who do our best to practice what it is we preach. I long to see the Church be the Church. I desire Leaders who will lead and not control, be honest with their own humanity, and vulnerable enough to let people in.
Believers and Leaders alike need to change. We need humility and pliability. Change is necessary. Everything healthy grows and changes! Let’s lay our sacred cows and judgments aside. It can happen I know it can. The Church that I see is beginning to emerge; it’s visible on the horizon. It starts with me…and you…