Where has the Church Gone?

I am honestly going to say I am very upset. What follows WILL offend some people, so I am going to be upfront:

Understand that the words I am typing are not meant for everyone. Specifically, they are addressed to a mindset. If you are offended and this doesn't fit you, I am truly sorry. If you are offended, however, and the words DO fit you, I am not. Someone has to speak the truth.

I was having a discussion about the church's response to depression, and a comment that I have heard many, many times over the years surfaced: "your problem is, you put too much trust in the church. Trust in God; He will deliver".

The second part of that statement is not wrong. The first is woefully, wickedly wrong, and is a heresy that is destroying the church: the heresy of noninvolvement.

This false teaching says, essentially, that I am not my brother's keeper. That people can literally die on my doorstep, and when they do, it is their failure to trust God, not my own nonaction, that caused their death. That I have appointments to get to, and, dammit, I'm a soccer dad (or mom), and that I really can't be inconvenienced by these things because there's a ref down at the city fields that needs shouting out because he actually carded MY KID!

It is a lie, and it is a lie that is destroying the church. It is also a lie I am finding to represent the overwhelming majority of self styled evangelists, who walk down the dirty streets with one arm full of Lee Stroebel books and another armful of pocket New Testaments, and walk away and call their work for the kingdom done.

As I've shared in previous articles, I have wrestled with depression to the point where I can truly say that it is only by God's grace that I am here today. I have (metaphorically) fought the devil to death's door, and can truly say that it was not a lack of faith that brought me there, and it was not the reduced to man sized cosmic vending machine God that brought me out. Yes, it was through the strength of God, but because depression is not simply "the devil's watchdog", that strength has been required again and again.

Job suffered relentless persecution; was he a man who lacked faith? Paul wrote of the thorn in the flesh; was Paul a man who just needed to trust in God a little more? Nope, and nope.

The hard, inescapable, UGLY truth is that the problems with the world are OURS as Christians to deal with. That that hideous, drunken stranger that He deposited on our doorstep was left there because God knew that when He was doing so, He was leaving that stranger in good hands. That the homeless man is reaching out to us not because we are passersby, but because he knows we are children of the King. And that we can do much to rescue him from his current state.

As a long time self described evangelical, I admit, I am questioning the term. I have fought hard and fast against the "liberal" church, but may soon be heading that route, because that "liberal" church is the only one I see that places compassion and care for the "least of these" as its highest priority. The evangelical church has not only failed to join me to that end, but many have even condemned me for that struggle.

I am tired of seeing the church abandon the call for Mammon. I cannot see the "first world problems" that predominate the church discussions as taking precedence over the very real problems that surround us daily. And I cannot see putting money to repair the church's computer to maintain the weekly slideshow over putting it into the storehouse as being wise stewardship.

I really want to hear back: where is the heresy in expecting Christians to follow the call, and calling them out when they not only fail, but outright REFUSE to do so? Why is the call to give up ALL to follow Christ NOT louder than the call to pursue Mammon? And why emphasize fellowship if its very purpose is not to bear up one another's burdens. I seriously want answers to these questions; I fail to see where the heresy lies!

I will continue to attend evangelical church services because, for the moment, I have no choice. But I will not join them. I will not tithe to them. Not until they show me consistently that they are not only dedicated to the call, but dedicated to teaching every member of their congregation to follow that call with fervent dedication, even if it means the loss of everything they hold dear.

Because in the end, nothing but the cross matters. And any church that teaches otherwise is teaching a false gospel.