IF PAUL WROTE A LETTER TO THE CHURCH TODAY…

If the apostle Paul wrote a letter to the modern church, I wonder if it might sound something like this:

“Grace and peace to you. I thank God for the ways the gospel is spread among you. Your generosity has reached far and wide; your worship is passionate; your ministries are impressive; and your influence is real. In many ways, your faith has been made visible to the world.

Brothers and sisters, I must speak plainly. You have learned how to gather crowds but you're forgetting how to carry crosses. You've become skilled at branding the gospel but less patient in baring one another in love. You speak often of freedom, yet many of you remain enslaved to comfort and endless distraction. You quarrel about leaders, ideologies, and tribes as though Christ were divided. Did Christ die for a party? Is anyone baptized into the name of a camp? Some of you are exhausted because you have mistaken activity for faithfulness. Others are confident because you have confused proximity to Christian things with obedience to Jesus.

Do you not remember that the Kingdom of God does not advance through spectacle but through surrender; not through dominance but through cruciform love; through repentance, confession, and obedience to the way of Jesus. You have many teachers but fewer are mothers and fathers in the faith. You consume teaching yet neglect the slow work of becoming like Christ.

Return again to the simple things: break bread together, carry one another's burdens, pray without ceasing, speak the truth in love, care for the vulnerable, welcome the outcast, love your neighbors and your enemies. Remember that the wisdom of the cross will always look like foolishness to the world but it is the power of God.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” 

-- Ian Simkins

#6485

BUSYNESS AND THE CHURCH

We Christians in America often pride ourselves on being busy with church activities. It is a compliment to say So-and-so is “active in church.” In some megachurches it is almost possible to spend all one’s nonworking, nonsleeping hours at church.

That isn’t necessarily bad. We need fellowship with other Christians, and church activities are better than many secular alternatives. But it might be healthy to consider our motives for remaining busy with church activities. According to 1 Corinthians 13, doing a lot of things is no substitute for genuine Christian love -- even though a loving Christian will, of course, do good works.

In my youth in Germany, my impression was that churches are places of worship, not activity centers. Europeans (whose rates of church attendance are much lower than Americans) still puzzle that American churches schedule so many activities outside the worship times. Personally, I like busyness, since it dispels the notion that Christianity is strictly a Sunday morning affair. Bible studies, fellowship times, prayer groups, etc., are wonderful things. My chief criticism of church busyness is this: We can bury ourselves in activities and withdraw from a world that needs to hear the gospel. Busy churches can be like monasteries – beehives of activity, but forgetful of Jesus’ mandate to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). We can’t “let [our] light shine before others” (Matthew 5:16) if our lights only shine within the church fellowship hall.

-- George Strumpf and J. Stephen Lang, quoted in “Side by Side: Disciple-Making for a New Century,” Steve and Lois Rabey, General Editors 

#6364