For the next few days I am going to re-post a series which I wrote last August entitled "'Traditional' Church?" The main reason for seeing these put forth again to because the validity of the problem is still apparent to my mind. Interestingly enough the thoughts contained within these posts seem to be a common thread amongst those who have been church goers for the majority of their lives, leading me to believe that something has got to change.
Most of us grew up in it. Walking in on a Sunday morning seeing people just like you with years of deep-seated problems repressed behind a composure of faux joy and the illusion everything is all right. Casual conversation flows carefully, not wanting to get tied up in the mire of someone’s ‘sins’. Glancing cleanly off the surface people greet each other and find their sets, the children are in their place, the teens in theirs, and now you, the adult, sit in yours.
As you sit through the service the preacher gives some helpful hints on the meaning of a word, six points on whatever he’s talking about, and you sing a myriad of new, old, odd songs. Whether the music feels soft and mellow, or you walk out thinking it was a concert doesn’t matter they do it all the same.
It’s an old theory, divide and conquer, working well on playgrounds, in police interrogation rooms, at dinner, and war. Splitting the enemy into manageable portions and reigning victorious over each. So the church has taken the family and catered to each level’s individual needs. The Children get something that stimulates them to learn about the Bible in Sunday school, VBS and other activities. The youth receive pizza and a man whose been trained specifically to help them learn about God, through weekly studies, camps, and retreats. The adults sit with coffee in hand listening to a man talk, to learn more about life while attending Adult Fellowships, prayer meetings, and other weekly events. All of this is designed to create good converts, people who know the Bible, God, and life well so as to live God-centered, Bible-based lives. Right?
Wrong. This system of church that we call ‘traditional’ is killing the Christian faith. The church has become, over time, more harmful to one’s faith than helpful. Whether you go to the flashy-concert-mega-church with some sort of teaching, or the small fledgling church with solid teaching, it doesn’t matter. The system, the way they do ‘church’, if it is traditional, is dangerous and ought to be killed. In those cases church has become a pitiful country club.
By now the majority of readers will say, ‘O were you burned by the church?’ trying to explain away my cynicism through psychology. No, the church, to answer the question, did not burn me; I’ve simply grown weary of the same statistics being true and the ‘church’ not acting like the Church in any manner whatsoever. So in these posts entitled “’Traditional’ Church?” I will chronicle the reasons for my cynicism and, by God’s grace, offer what seems to be the logical solution.
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