Sunday

150 Church Sucks! - But Jesus Doesn't!



We were invited to attend a multi-denominational open air "worship service," as they like to call it, this afternoon, by some very dear friends of ours, and we attended.
What it did for us, was make us realize that church simply is not our thing. It may be good and okay for a lot of people, but then there are a lot of people who also like to crowd together in big stadiums to watch 23 people chase a leather ball, or rattle their heads to the sound of bands like AC/CD or Nine Inch Nails.

As far as the music goes, we have heard better, and we have definitely seen more fire - at least I have, and as far as the ideology behind so-called church services goes, my conviction has reached its peak today that the one thing the world doesn't need is another sermon.

What the world doesn't need is bunches of Christians rotting together and singing lukewarm songs to God and calling that "service" to God while the world is going to pot around our ears. Maybe there are people who need that sort of religion, just like other people need opium, whiskey or cocaine, but I don't.

I guess perhaps God put us here for the handful of people on this globe who may come to share our view that church sucks, but Jesus doesn't.

Jesus is totally and absolutely the Real Thing as far as I am concerned, but the way most people claim to be "serving" Him falls light-years short of getting anywhere near cutting the cake.

What the world needs is something different, something other than "church services."
What the world needs to see is a true Christianity based on the principle of being living samples of obedience to God, and not another bunch of spiritual cowards comforting each other over the fact that they're going to go to Heaven despite the fact that they're not really obeying God, since they feverishly try to ignore the things He said that don't agree with their lukewarm and selfish life-style.

I'm not writing this in order to purposely aggravate anyone, but because I'm upset and determined that I've attended "church" for the last time in my life today, hopefully.
It just doesn't cut it. It's miles and miles away from what "ecclesia" (the original meaning of "church") is really supposed to be.

Maybe it's your thing. Good for you. And maybe you think you should get as many people to participate in that sort of "service."
Personally, I'd rather stay on the lookout for something more innovative, something more original, something more like the Real Thing, even if totally unconventional and unheard of, possibly even maligned and persecuted and rejected, like the Early Church, the original Christians and full-time followers of Christ as described in the Book of Acts...
Or the bedraggled band of followers of St.Francis...

Give me any type of radical, alive and white-hot form of Christianity, but not that conventional humdrum they call "church."

Sorry if that means another bunch of friends running out the door and in the opposite direction...

But I'd rather go out and find myself some new friends then, who agree with me that church sucks, and - if they don't know it yet - prove to them that Jesus doesn't.
Probably a lot of people think Jesus sucks because of the way He's portrayed in the churches, or simply because they've had the same feeling we did when they attended church...

Maybe it's simply a matter of taste, the way some people like the music of Britney Spears or Madonna and others say, "No, thanks!"
Maybe the "pop culture" version of Christianity simply isn't the Real Thing as far as some folks are concerned...
And maybe the world is just waiting for them to show them an alternative...

Maybe they're just waiting for a handful of believers with a little bit of genuine discernment to detect that there must be something fishy, something wrong about the conventional way, that would confirm the way they feel about it: "You must be kidding! This is supposed to be IT? That's the way the followers of the greatest Revolutionary of all times are supposed to act? - No way, dude!"

No wonder a lot of people don't want to know much about Jesus, if He's anything similar to the bulk of His supposed followers.
No offense, folks, but I think there's lots of room for improvement, and while you're at it, next time, make it a revolution, and not another mere reformation.

You can count me in...

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