Here is great quote about church from NT Scholar N.T. Wright
“According to the early Christians, the church doesn’t exist in order to provide a place where people can pursue their private spiritual agendas and develop their own spiritual potential. Nor does it exist in order to provide a safe haven in which people can hide from the wicked world and ensure that they themselves arrive safely at an otherworldly destination. Private spiritual growth and ultimate salvation come rather as the by-products of the main, central, overarching purpose for which God has called and is calling us. The purpose is clearly stated in various places in the New Testament: that through the church God will announce to the wider world that he is indeed its wise, loving and just creator; that through Jesus he has defeated the powers that corrupt and enslave it; and that by his Spirit he is at work to heal and renew it. The church exists, in other words, for what we sometimes call “mission” to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord.”
As a pastor one thing you have to face is people coming in and out of your church. Some of my greatest sorrows are when people that you love and care about leave your church. Now, I know that God can and does call people to serve somewhere else. Often times people leave one church to go and thrive somewhere else, but sometimes the leaving is followed by a prolonged period of looking and looking and then never serving on the same level they did when they at their former church. I am reminded of a convicting section of Kent Hughes’ book, Disciplines of a Godly Man where he deals with what he calls “ecclesiastical hitchhikers.”
He writes: Church attendance is infected with a malaise of conditional loyalty which has produced an army of ecclesiastical hitchhikers. The hitchhiker’s thumb says, “You buy the car, pay for repairs and upkeep and insurance, fill the car with gas — and I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, you are on your own! And I’ll probably sue.” So it is with the credo of so many of today’s church at tenders: “You go to the meetings and serve on the boards and committees, you grapple with the issues and do the work of the church and pay the bills —and I’ll come along for the ride. But if things do not suit me, I’ll criticize and complain and probably bail out — my thumb is always out for a better ride.”
This putative loyalty is fueled by a consumer ethos — a “McChristian” mentality — which picks and chooses here and there to fill one’s ecclesiastical shopping list. There are hitchhikers who attend one church for the preaching, send their children to a second church for its dynamic youth program, and go to a third church’s small group.
So have you ever been a “church hitchhiker”? Is it right to leave a church because you no longer enjoy it? Why is that people always assume their spiritual problem stems from the church? Could it be the problem they have is between them and God and their pursuits of another church is only masking it? If anything being a pastor has taught me is that churches are not perfect, they are full of sinners who need each other to become the people God wants them to be. Read your New Testament the churches Paul all wrote to had problems, none were prefect, but Jesus died for the church. But God chose the church as His vessel to the world. So, if you are looking for a prefect church, then know this much if you find it then the moment you walk in the doors you will be the one to mess it up.
Pastor Kyle did a great job preaching Sunday and is an amazing guy! Have a great week and I am getting back to writing after my week off.
