The Basics of Life, Pt 1

We didn't have church this morning because of the ice, so Tammy & I got to have a deep philosophical discussion about church.

Please forgive me for being vague. However, I'll need to keep this generic in order to keep the Blog Police who came to visit me four Fridays ago from visiting me again.

But, I digress...

On Friday night, I had the chance to read a couple of really good articles from this month's Pathway newspaper. They spoke specifically about the lack of meat in churches today; the articles specifically referenced how we as Christians willingly threw out the baby with the bathwater when Bill Hybels and his "seeker-sensitive" model of church became all the rage a few decades ago. In the interim, our churches have thrown out expositional preaching and traditional Christian courage in proclaiming Christ in favor of felt-needs based "programs" and slick slogans for success.

Let me clarify here - I'm not speaking about "one" church or "a" church...I'm speaking about many.

Years ago, I remember a very simple church motto that would be sneered at today by many: Where everybody is somebody and Jesus Christ is Lord.

Don't get me wrong - I believe there are places for new ideas & methods. Quite honestly, many of them opened new and exciting doors of opportunity at my current church over the last decade-plus I served as Sunday School Director.

But when a church adopts these methods and bases its ministry on its relevancy to the secular world and a hard focus on numbers versus doing what you think is right and what is Bible-based and letting God handle the rest, you're in trouble.

I remember a few years ago when Hannibal's high school football team (I'm a former proud Pirate) played Pattonville in the district playoffs. I was at the game and watched a Pirate player take a kickoff and streak through the Pattonville defense, seemingly on his way to a touchdown and what could've been the nail in the coffin in the game.

But, he turned around to look to see who was gaining on him. In doing so, he dropped a step, and before he could reach the end zone he was tackled at the 3 yard line. On the next play, there was a botched snap from center, and Pattonville picked up the ball and ran it back 97 yards for a touchdown. Pattonville never looked back and eventually won the ballgame.

I learned two important lessons from that turn of events.

First, run hard and don't look back...someone might be gaining on you.

Second, who cares if someone's gaining on you? If you're doing what's right, and you know you're doing what's right, there's no reason to look around to see what others are doing. As long as they're going to a Bible-believing church, isn't that the goal? Do what God leads you to do, not what others are doing.

I hope you enjoy these next two articles...they really spoke to me where I'm at right now, and I hope they shed a little light on a situation I've previously tried to write about, but without the good choice of words these two authors selected.