THEOLOGY AND CHURCHES DON’T ALWAYS MESH
In the last blog, I explained how churches can become engaged in truthiness or delivering messages through word and behavior that contradicts the Gospel. If you followed through with the suggestion, you made use of your church email to invite people in the congregation to send you up to four “lies” they thought churches did or said that would contradict what Jesus would say or do.
You may want to give them a couple of weeks to get their suggestions in to you. In the meantime, I suggested that you make your own list. At least as I made my list, there was theological thoughts that helped form my list. I will share mine and you can compare them with yours and those you will get from your congregation.
Before we begin, let me note that you might have some surprises when you receive the lists from the members. I would caution you not to dismiss even the more bizarre suggestions. They might become good material for later discussions.
STEVE’S LISTS OF LIES
I have not attempted to place these in order. Nor do they come out of long periods of reflection. I simply sat down with a piece of paper and made my list as it popped into my head.
1. Being a member of a church and living in our society should be a comfortable relationship. (For me, the gospel raises big challenges for our society that should make us uncomfortable..
2. Christianity consists of private beliefs and personal ethics and should not publicly challenge business or political practices and positions. (If God is Lord of the world and desires to reconcile it to Godself, then the faithful need to be involved in working with God.)
3. If you are faithful to God, you should expect to be successful because God rewards faithfulness. (I need to go no further than the life of Jesus and Paul to suggest that faithfulness does not always result in public success. Sometimes being faithful leads to suffering and ridicule.)
4. God understands when other weekend activities take precedence over regular attendance at worship. (maybe this is a preacher’s issue, but I think worship needs to have a priority in ones life. We need regular reminders that we are not God and praise of God takes precedence over many pleasures and commitments.)
5. The mission of the church to our community and the poor and needy is an add on to church life and not the first priority. (Can a church build a monument to itself and fail to hear God’s call to those God loves?)
6. The top priority for a church is meeting the needs of their members. (Should not the top priority be seeking to understand God’s call for the church?”
7. If a church is not meeting your needs, you should find a church that does. (Is it possible that God is calling you to either help build up that church or listen to what it is saying that is upsetting you.)
8. Stewardship is an uncomfortable necessity to be able to pay the bills and not a central issue of our faith journey. (If being a good steward is managing what God has blessed us with in a manner pleasing to God, then doesn’t what we do with our wealth become a central part of our faith journey.)
OK, that’s my list. If it raises questions, let me know. I hope the conversation with your members can cause some good growth of discipleship. I would be interested in hearing what you learn from it.
