How should we picture the Kingdom of God? Or by what story shall we present it?

Interesting question isn’t it? It’s one Jesus asked His disciples.

I think an answer to that is eating with tax collectors and sinners.  Yes, I know today we have certain things in place that help us stay on the path of our walk. At times I wonder though, if our path keeps us from the very people we are to reach.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “guard your witness’? It’s a phrase to admonish us not to be seen near a liquor store, never offer to hold someone’s beer, don’t offer anyone a light.

If I were to be talking to someone at Starbucks about Jesus and they said they were getting hungry and asked me to go eat at the Drunken Donkey, should I say no because it “ruins my witness”? Or would it actually ruin my witness to say no to someone I was sharing the love of Jesus with?

The Pharisees took the teaching of the Torah and added a bunch of stuff to it. It was all the “bunch of stuff” Jesus and His disciples were always accused of breaking. “Why don’t you follow the tradition of the elders?” This is my paraphrase here, “Because tradition isn’t Torah”.

I’m all about living a holy life because Scripture tells me to but as I read Mark’s gospel the other day I began to see that Jesus did things way different than we do today. For one thing there is the eating with sinners thing. We can be so concerned with ruining our witness that we actually have no witness.

Jesus was moved with compassion and healed people. Often times we are moved to judgment to condemn people. Jesus walked in love and those of us who are Jesus followers should walk the same way.

Every time Jesus preached he followed up His message with a time of healing people and casting out demons. When was the last time we saw that in a church service?

It’s time that as Jesus followers we become more focused on His Kingdom and not our denomination. We need unity not infighting. I read so many articles about the church in America being in decline could it be because we are not Kingdom focused? Could it be because we’ve given up a gospel of power for a gospel of intellectual doctrine?

As Followers of Jesus I challenge each of us to spend regular time reading the gospels. I think it will change the way we do and see church.

Realization:

It has been a while since my last post and during that time the Lord has done many things in my life and spoken much to my Spirit. During that time the Lord sat an appointment for He and I during a Passover conference. Many things transpired during the conference and in the following weeks.

The first thing that began to take place is a revelatory understanding began to take place in my spirit concerning the Hebrew or Jewish roots of the faith. When I say revelatory understanding I mean something that has changed me and not just head and book knowledge that is acquired. I have spoken some about this and more will come in the future.

I also began to see how I had lost my passion for prayer, don’t misunderstand, I still prayed and still emphasized the importance of prayer in my life, it’s just that I allowed that passion and the commitment to pursuing the presence of God through prayer slip.
Many things began to be revealed to me, much of which lead to times of repentance.

Repentance:

During this time I realized how I had allowed religion to take hold during my high school years. I had some very wrong staunch positions and said very hurtful things to people I knew. At times I focused too much on the Judgment of God than His love, for that I am deeply sorry.

As I began to repent for things Holy Spirit brought to my attention I began to see how a restoration of God’s order and purpose needed to take place, not only in my own life but in the body of Christ as a whole.

Restoration:

The first thing that I knew needed to be restored was the Hebrew Roots of the faith. I am not saying we go back under law, I am saying there are things God put in place that He did not change between the Old and New Testaments, these include, Sabbath, Feast Days, and the BLESSING that comes in walking in obedience. We need to be restored to God’s order and His timing and this happens when we return to our roots.

I also believe the Lord wants to restore the reality of the fruit and gifts of the Spirit to believers through the leadership of the Five Fold Ministry of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher. It is the first two that truly need to be restored to the Church.

We must return to prayer, praise, and the presence of God. I know many denominations see how they disagree with each other but it is those who will realize that they agree doctrinally and put aside secondary issues that will see a move of God.

We must restore true praise and worship to the Church and not a fifteen to twenty five minute song service that is broken up with greet your neighbor, bowing for prayer, and worship leaders who talk more than they lead us in worship. Scripture tells us to enter with thanksgiving and praise. We will not experience God in the way He has for us until we return to both corporate and personal worship.

Concluding Thoughts:

It’s time for us to be willing to put aside our traditions, programs, and orders of service and invite God in to awaken us. We must be a people of personal and corporate prayer, praise and worship, and people of the Word.

We have destroyed ourselves by trying to systematically learn and describe everything about God. Theology is important but when it is more important than experiencing the God of the theology the devil has won.

We must return to the Church of Acts and the Mystics of times past they knew God and demonstrated God and the Church grew. We wonder why the Church is in decline, we have left relationship and experience for a systematic theology that puts us at odds with each other.

Church, let us turn back to a relational experience with a God who loves us. I’m not saying throw out doctrine or morality. A true experience and an awakening only comes with those things, but with those things alone we are Pharisees, having a form of Godliness but denying its power.

Church lets realize where we are, repent for the things we need to, restore the age old foundations and experience a revival that leads to awakening.

I have been thinking quite a bit lately on church, how we should do church, what does being relevant mean? Is it jeans and a t-shirt, is it a pastor who preaches off an ipad, is it a coffee bar, is it smoke, lights, illustrations, and power points?

I’m not going to get into all that today, I’m not even going to teach. Yesterday in church the last song we sang was the heart of worship. The worship leader relayed the story of Matt Redman’s pastor (we all know Matt Redman; he is a great contemporary worship leader). His church had the smoke and the lights, they had a full band, but the pastor felt that worship had become too much of a production. So he took away the sound system, band, and the whole thing for a period of time so that the church could get back to the heart of things. Matt Redman said the song; The Heart of Worship was born out of that time.

When the music fades
and all has slipped away
and I simply come.
Longing just to be
something that’s of worth
that will bless Your heart.

I’ll bring You more than a song,
for a song in itself
is not what You have required.
You search much deeper within,
through the way things appear,
Your looking into my heart.

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
and its all about You, its all about You, Jesus.
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
when its all about You, its all about You, Jesus.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with a band, or lights or anything, but as I attend worship services these days it does seem like it’s a production and not a praise time. As Dusty said in Pure Country, “I’m tired, I’m tired of all the smoke and the lights, it aint me, and the people cant even hear me the music is so loud.” I think George Strait’s character in the movie can describe the Church. Now I’m not saying get rid of your band (the smoke machine, maybe). Read the lyrics, let them sync in…. Our churches have become more about entertaining it seems…

My point is not to get rid of anything, but to examine our hearts, motives, and why we do things.

More on this in the coming weeks.

As I began thinking about writing about the Church and its purpose, my mind automatically went to the great commission:

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing    them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things  that I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” ~ Matthew 28:18-20

As I thought about that verse, I decided to go in a different direction. For those of us who have been in Church we readily understand our purpose of winning lost souls and making disciples. However in this post I have decided to take a look at the church today.

Before I begin, I want to say that I am not against Churches that are large in size; I have however in recent months begun to develop a bad taste for what many “mega-churches” have become. I don’t believe we need to go back to the 1800’s, however I do thing we should still be reverent in church and I don’t believe we should be using worldly things to attract the world, HELLO! They already have the world they need Jesus!

The inside of many churches are beginning to look like night clubs instead of houses of worship. Preachers are giving “talks” that are about 25-30 minutes in length instead of truly teaching the truth of the Word for 25-30 minutes.

Now this is not all big churches but quite a few. We put the verses up on the screen which can cause the people to look there instead of the Scripture on their lap, this causes some (dare I say many people) not to even bring a Bible to church, or if they do it remains unopened.

I am all for innovative ways to bring people in but let’s think things all the way through before we decide to do them. Pastor think about what it looks like for you to preach off your Ipad and not have your Bible, yes I know the verses are on your Ipad, but your people need to see you with a Bible, they need to see you turn to the scriptures.

I am all for Bible apps and websites. I have an app on my phone, but when you solely use your app or a website you aren’t getting to know your Bible, you don’t get familiar with book order; you can’t turn to your favorite passage. And while searching things can be helpful, I believe it causes us to know less of our Bible, and discourage memorization because all we have to do is pull up our app and type in a key word.

I am not trying to be mean or critical; there are just some things I don’t think need an update or modernization. We should stick with our leather bound Bibles and turn our pages and really get to know the person of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit from cover to cover, not keystroke by keystroke.

Why do I mention the Church looking like a night club, what’s the problem? It’s not a night club. Our lights shouldn’t be turned off with a few spot lights on the platform that’s covered in smoke.

I don’t mind coffee and donuts before church, but do we really need to bring them in the service?

For those of us who have been in church for a while, what’s the deal with this come as you are stuff? Wearing shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops on Sunday morning? I’m not talking about visitors I am talking about Church members, we are coming to worship God, and surely we can present ourselves better and eat the donut and drink the coffee before coming into the sanctuary.

What happened to the days of reverence?

The next thing that’s been on my mind is the mindset of celebrity pastor, (I’ll admit I have been guilty of this way of thinking when I have thought about my future church). On this subject I am primarily talking about your average size churches and not your mega churches. It seems today that many pastors are concerned with preaching and not shepherding. Yes the pastor preaches and should spend time studying, but the role of pastor is caretaker, counselor, encourager, and pray-er.

I have noticed in some recent conversations I have had with people in ministry (and those like me, aspiring to one day be a senior pastor) that the prevailing thought is pastors should only preach and they need to hire other staff to handle counseling and pastoral care, you know, all the day-to-day stuff.

I understand a church of 200 or more needs to delegate, but even small churches of 75-100 have pastors who want to only preach and not take care of the people God has entrusted them with.

Pastors who show up on time, not early, or early but don’t mingle with the people. The pastor who bolts after the altar call or the hand shaking. Pastors need to be for their people and not wannabe celebrities, for this I am guilty and have repented and asked the Lord to change my heart in this area and He has and is doing that.

A problem I see with those of us who are called to pastor is we see these guys on TV and the well known podcasters and start to imitate them and want what they have….God has called me to be me not someone else. I don’t need to have a huge church unless that is God’s plan and even then I don’t need to be a “celebrity pastor” pretending those in my congregation are the awful press, they are my people, my family and they should be treated as such.

Going back to the reverence issue of the church, I know some may say, God is my daddy and the church should be treated like his house. My answer is yes and no, not like you think. Yes, God is our Father and we should come to Him as such, but as far as church, worship, and Word go there must be a reverence.

In Nehemiah the people built a platform and pulpit solely for the purpose of preaching, as soon as the scroll (Bible) was opened the people stood in reverence. I believe this kind of thing is missing from many churches today.

While I love modern praise and worship, I still think hymns should be sung, they contain great truth.

The Church needs to strike a balance and not be so modern that we disregard our heritage, holiness, and the hope that we offer.

The Church should look like a church, we should use the language of the Bible and not try to update it but explain its richness…

I know I didn’t write a teaching on the purpose of the church like many (even I) thought I would but this is what was on my heart and I hope these things haven’t driven away any readers.

I am all for new methods but I don’t believe that means changing everything the Church has always been. It’s ok for a church to look like a church, it should. Have a steeple, have a cross in the sanctuary, have altars, even if they are at the side, have pew racks, not for hymnals but for Bibles, so that those who don’t have one or forgot theirs can still pick one up and read it.

One last thought, if the church building is completely overhauled along with the message that becomes a “talk” on God’s love, grace and mercy (but no mention of Jesus), all the happy verses, but not the holy ones, all the saving ones, but not the sin condemning ones, or all the prosperity verses without the profitable “hard to swallow” verses then can we really say we are the Church.

Again, I am not speaking against mega churches, or positive messages, the Gospel is a positive message. I am just concerned in some ways our modernization of our methods and message can is some ways be damaging if we aren’t careful. How can it be damaging? If we loosen up the methods and the message too much permissiveness of sin can slip in under the guise of freedom or love or grace, IF things are not kept in the right balance of method and message.     

Thanks for reading this post, a little out of the ordinary for this series…but this has been rolling around in me for a little while now….

See you next week, God Bless!