found this a while back and thought I'd share

Written on 2/09/2009 09:13:00 PM by Miles

Parallel factors are destroying the church in our context.  We have pressing needs and we don't know how they will be met.  Where will I get my significance?  What can I do to make myself feel that I count?  Who cares about me and understands me?  Where can I find intimacy?  We are a well-fed prison camp.  We have everything we need materially - housing, food, computers, cars, entertainment, travel - but inside we are isolated and empty.  

Worship then becomes the way we try to deal with our emptiness and our isolation.  The point about our worship is to make us feel better; the point about God is to make us feel good.  So we abandon scripture reading, because that's boring . We abandon the gospel story, because that happened a long time ago and doesn't look very relevant.  We can go through a whole worship service without hearing any reference to the fact that God created the world, delivered Israel, sent Jesus to live and die for us, and raised him from the dead.  The Israelites forgot the gospel and gave up on God's written word because they were so concerned with their personal needs.  The same thing has happened to us.  

There is a tragic paradox here.  We need to be brought outside ourselves by seeing our lives in the context of a bigger picture, a bigger story - the gospel story.  But we are so overwhelmed by our emptiness, isolation, and insignificance that we don't pay attention to the bigger story.  All we want to do is think about ourselves in need, so we turn God into someone whose focus is on meeting our needs.  We make God a quick fix.  But quick fixes don't work.

Posted in authenticity, church, Gut Check |