The Church Machine

 Did you hear the headlines?

Another one fell...

Oh how the valiant have fallen.

Did you hear? (so and so left the church....)

Did you know? (so and so is living with his girlfriend...Tsk Tsk...His parents had such a strong walk with Jesus too.)

Did you hear? Megachurch so and so has (insert big name) speaking at that church! We should go!

What are you doing on Sunday?

Well after church service, I serve, then after that I have a church meeting....

Has the church become a machine?

A business venture? 

A club of "do-good-ers?"

Oh Father! Please no!!!!!!!

I confess I have not heard a message in a long time talking about the very important topic of repentance. 

"Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit in me" Psalm 51

I feel like Social Media has both blessed the church and HURT the church in various ways. 

For one, many people watch a 2 minute devotional video and they falsely tell themselves:

"That was my devotion for the day"

Although I love catching little sermonettes or sound bites from social media...this is NOT intimacy with God...

True intimacy with God comes from bearing your soul before your Creator, being still in His presence, reading the Bible, line by line and then spending time in prayer. (Jeremiah 15:16, Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:12)

Like Jon Courson used to say "Read your Bible and pray" every single day. (Psalm 63:1-8)

The other day I was praying and I thought of this term 

"church machine"

Have we become part of the church machine?

Instead of an organic body of Christ have we become robotic and mechanic like terminator? Have we forgotten that Jesus (not Arnold) is the first one that said "I'll be back?"

I don't want to be a part of the church machine. 

I desire to be a part of the body of Christ. 

I want to be open to the Holy Spirit's leading...however that looks and wherever that may be. 

I remember one time I had a rough morning. 

I had gotten in a HUGE argument with Chuck on a Saturday night and then now on Sunday morning I was crying, weeping, lifting my hands in surrender and truly repenting. 

A friend pulled me aside and said "Hey are you ok?"

I was thinking about this the other day.

Are we truly aware of the fact that others around us are hurting?

Do we dare put ourselves out there and ask "Are you ok?"

As part of the church machine....we do not do this enough. 

We need to be real, raw, vulnerable and obedient to the Holy Spirit. It took a lot of courage for that friend to ask me if I was ok. I do not weep that much and she noticed. 

What a blessing and gift. 

Do we slow down enough to notice?

Are we missing out on ministering to God and hearing from God while we do ministry?

I think we are. 

You see...when you read the book of Acts....service to the LORD and others happened everywhere. On the streets, on the way to prayer meetings, during 1:1 prayer time, in corporate prayer time, and it looked different from day to day. This is the venture of faith and excitement I believe we are missing. 

We are so used to how church "should look" and operate that we forget about the Holy Spirit. 

Dr. Timothy Keller said in a sermon the other day hyper spiritual Christians go off "emotional highs" and hyper Bible teaching churches thrive off of "intellectual highs." God wants us to use both- our minds and our hearts. We need both. 

We need the Holy Spirit to ignite us. We need God's Word to ground us. We need both.

My fear is that living in America....we have become soft and weak in our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. 

When I was young, I did not like scary movies. One of my older cousins said "Just watch it and remind yourself 'this is fake' The blood is fake. The person did not really get killed. it's not real" 

You get de-sensitized and you can watch the movie without fear. 

*(I still don't like scary movies!)

Have we in America lost the fear of God? Have we lost the sensitivity to sin? To the Holy Spirit's prompting?

Have we become a church machine where we go to church, read our Bibles a bit, cry and bit, go home and stay unmoved that there are SO many non-believers dying without Jesus?

This whole Covid pandemic should be making us different! 

We need to be different!

We need to be vibrant, caring, loving God-fearing compassionate people. 

I do not know about you but I am so tired of hearing about masks and vaccines. I am NOT tired of hearing about the Gospel. 

How do you dismantle a machine?

You self evaluate. You individually and corporately confess sin... 

You take it apart piece by piece and try to find out where the power source is. 

The power has always been Jesus. 

Advancing His kingdom....(not a specific church, a specific event, or a specific agenda)

It's always been Jesus. (Acts 4:12)

We need help!

Houston we have a problem. 
We have allowed complacency, routine, and apathy creep into the church and now we have a church machine. 

Please LORD Jesus give us hearts that break for what breaks yours. 

In Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, he talks about faith and "faith moods."

He writes: "The first step is to reognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoings are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief no any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?" 

Revive us again dear God! We need fresh wind and fresh fire and a hunger and thirst for righteousness!

Holy Spirit please send ONE MORE revival!