In the last decade or two families within the Church have
slowly digressed in their involvement and dedication to the Church herself and
their amount of service within it. It is
now common for families to only step foot within the church for 2-3 hours a
week. In fact, attending church once a
month is considered being a “regular” attending member. People, that is a problem.
Why do you think our grandparents went to church on Sunday
mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights-and any other time the doors were
open? Because they didn’t have other
commitments and weren’t as busy?
No. They were in Church every
time the doors were open because that’s how
they did life together. When did church no longer equate with life?
That is your community. God puts us together in the Church
so that we can help one another work toward the same goal. Friends, the world does not get to determine
how important Church is or how we prioritize it.
The problem is that we no longer view the Church as a place
to serve, but as a place to receive.
We’ve turned attending church into a spiritual consumerism of sorts in
which we go wondering what we can get out of it rather than what we have to
offer.
John Piper put it well when he said No Christian can be a
lone ranger. We won’t make it on our
own. We need each other to cling to
Jesus”. The Church isn’t about us or
what we can get out of it, but how we can help carry one another. God forgive us for thinking otherwise.
It’s time for us to stop asking what the Church can do for
me and instead ask what can I do for the Church. For they are our tribe, our people, our
family.
