I've been wrestling back and forth over whether to write this article or not. I've finally decided it's what I MUST do. It will cost me friends, and it will definitely damage certain earnings prospects, but it's an honest and painful truth, and it must be said. As Jesus said in Matthew 10:34, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword."
I accepted Christ in 1988, and have NO QUESTION about the validity of Jesus Christ, or of my faith. But there is an increasingly growing divide between where the church is going and where they are called to go! Churches focus on numbers, they focus on multimedia systems, each trying to outdo the other with elaborate music numbers. They've made ministry a position of privilege, and they pushed aside many with the desire to minister because it didn't fit with the branded image of the church.
A branding that was built not on the Word of God, but on Wall Street. A branding built to make their church a highly successful venture. One that has led many to add bookstores and latte bars.
Those who advocate social change are called socialists, and worse. Those who talk about serving the poor are told that the poor are parasites and that feeding them is the same as feeding strays, that they should be starved out of existence. This in OPEN defiance of the admonitions found in the end of Matthew 25. The church has, to put it simply, become a church that served mammon. A church that put material needs around serving the community.
To be fair, not every church is like this. But I will say that in my journey and travels, easily 80-90% of the self described "evangelical churches" are. And the poison found in books like "The Purpose Driven Life" and "The Prayer of Jabez" has caused many well intentioned Christians to abandon service to their community in pursuit of mammon. The church has filled her pulpits with false prophets.
The change in the church eerily echoes the final temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan offers Jesus everything if Jesus will only fall down and worship him.
The church has taken the bait. I, for my own part, have taken the bait. It's time that we repent, come back to God, and abandon the materialism that has driven us. The world needs us; they do not need a bunch of self serving fools with Hillsong CD's.
If this causes us to part ways, I understand, and God Bless. But I have said what must be said.
