my church is better than your church

DISCLAIMER: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SOME GRIPE

You know, you hear a lot about the "problems with Christians today" or the "problems with the church" today, and I'm not saying I haven't ever contributed to that stuff, but I really think I've found the root of the "church's problems." The problem being that no church truly realizes that they are on the same team as the church across town. I realize that organizations like the Southern Baptist Association and the Association of Evangelical Churches would lead you to think otherwise, but let me ask you this: when is the last time you saw a church in a community partner with another church to accomplish something for Christ. Whether it be a simple Sunday morning service, an outreach event, or anything else, it is very rare that you see something like that. And why?

I had a conversation the other day that would provide one answer. When another church in the Columbia area got brought up, someone's first comment was "there is too much fundamentally wrong about that church." Wow. What a profound statement, coming from a human who descends from the lineage to whom the Fall occurred. Let me ask this: with statements like the Great Commission as our guide, doesn't the mere fact that we haven't reached "all nations" with the message of Christ prove that there is something "fundamentally wrong" with every church? When I asked what fundamentals this church was violating, all I got were several (unbiblical) traditions that this church didn't strive to hold up. I worry that sometimes the line between traditions of the church and what the bible says about church is getting blurred.

And maybe a reason we can't reach people in the multitudes we want to is because this is what the rest of the worlds sees when they think about church: a group of a hundred different denominations that can't even bring themselves not to dispute with each other, much less the outside world. Well, either that, or they see that we need to put a spokesperson on CNN to tell everyone that we as the "conservative Christian" demographic are having a crisis because we don't have a political candidate yet. To me, in a broken world like ours, there HAS TO BE better ways of spending our time as a church than concerning ourselves with crap like that.

I've never been one to think we need to modify our behavior as a church or as Christians to "appeal" to non-believers. But I don't think it's a coincidence that when we do something as un-Christlike as endorsing a political candidate and competing amongst ourselves, that we end up turning people off to the message of Christ.

This message is a very relevant one. I don't think we have to try to make it relevant to people; people need hope. If we can stick to the truth without embellishing it with what WE think is best, it will work 100% of the time. But the problem is when we start creating our own fundamentals, and turn our focus on making our way the best rather than cooperating to reach an empty world.

I find the church very worldly in the way that we joined the competitive corporate world. The more "customers" we can get, the better off we'll be. I can't help but think that the real reason we won't work with other churches and organizations is the same reason you don't see Pepsi and Coke teaming up to "refresh the world." Each is afraid their product isn't strong enough to withstand such an effort. As the church, we have Someone strong enough (but isn't a product--more on that another day), we're just really worried that someone else is packaging it better than us. Let's be the exception to the rest of the world, for once, please. Isn't that what He was?