The past few months of my life have been different than any other.
For the first time I have begun asking questions instead of going with the flow.
My entire life I have been attending church. I really think I was in church the week after I was born. The modern day church has also been a substantial part of my life.
Now as I’m getting older and forming opinions based off of experiences and study, I’m starting to question a lot of what we (the Church) are doing.
I, as most of you probably have, grew up in a Church society full of skits, concerts, cheesy t-shirts, books, and conferences. For the first time I am beginning to question the purpose of our mission.
I believe the Church is full of people who fear and love the Lord, but I am concerned with the drive behind our services and events.
It seems to me that church has become just as much about an experience as most of today’s consumer driven companies. We put on a show that can hold it’s own against any Vegas attraction, but is it really doing anything to solidify and grow our relationship with God?
I understand that argument that says “non-Christians need to be drawn in by experience”, but is it truly valid? If we truly meet every Sunday and Wednesday to worship the God we learn about in Scripture then why do we feel we need a flawless, consumer driven production? After all didn’t He use a donkey and a slow-speaking murder like Moses?
Instead of providing a place where authenticity and interaction with God are the focal points, we have created a Church that does it’s best to compete with the experience driven market around us. We’ve taken our ability to live led by the Holy Spirit and turned into a Church that does it’s best to reflect a real experience with God through goosebumps and emotionally stirring guitar riffs.
Yeah, I’m a little shocked I’m saying these things too. If you know anything about me you know that I have been a part of some incredible productions and modern day church events. I have been blessed with opportunities to use my creativity in the modern church, but I feel like it’s time to harbor that in different ways. I think the Church should be all about creativity and imagination, but instead of imagining a building filled with thousands of people just like us why don’t we dream of an end to world hunger? Why don’t we focus our creative energy on solving homelessness in our backyards? Why don’t we stop worrying about the amount of lights we need for the worship service and worry about the amount of mouths we can feed during the upcoming holiday season?
The Church needs to make some major changes. We need less famous Christians and more famous people who love Christ. We need less talk and more action. We need less clique community and more impacted communities. We need less of an experience and more emphasis on a true change in lifestyle.
Church is once a week, a relationship with Christ is for eternity. We can thrill people every Sunday but if they aren’t being taught to pray and fully devote their lives to Christ a raised hand during an altar call is only temporary.
-Shane
(I would love to know your thoughts on the matter. Please share this post via Twitter, FB, etc. I want to know where others stand on their opinions of today’s Church culture. Also, feel free to email me at: sanchezrevamp@gmail.com)
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