American Idol: Season I (love my Church)

Idolatry has always been a hot topic especially when it comes to religion. It is certainly not new when it comes to the church. But I see a new season of American Idol taking over our nation: the idolatry of simply loving your church.

There are countries where freedom of religion does not exist and people risk their lives to gather with others to collectively worship and celebrate all that God is and all that He is doing. I have been to church services where this is so evident and it is an amazing and rare find. You enter into a place of being surrounded with redeemed and reconciled lives crying out to their Rescuer. Whether praising or lamenting they are joined together offering adoration to one; the only one worthy of any praise. It is intense and emotional.

I have also sadly been to church services where I have not experienced this. Sometimes I wonder if it is because they have never tasted and seen the God worthy of the kind of worship that shouts, “Take my life. I want nothing of my old self and only what You have for me.” 

Like the woman who wiped her hair on Jesus’ feet or the men who dug through a rooftop just to be with Him. They were not there to draw a crowd. They were not there to make everyone who came feel comfortable and they were not there to convince others to say the sinner’s prayer. They were there to meet Jesus in their desperation and despair; to receive life and hope. They had nothing to offer and they risked everything just to be with Him. They laid it all down and went against every social norm because they believed He was worth EVERYTHING. How are we doing as a church?

Are we laying it all down because we believe He is worth EVERYTHING? Or do we need numbers on Sunday morning to feel like a success, a building of our own to feel like we can effectively minister to the masses, or a dynamite children’s “program” to draw people to our church? Do we exist to make our church known? If we do then I would say we aren't doing too badly when we hand out t-shirts to proudly proclaim our church name and slogan to those that serve inside the church. And just maybe these great servants will proudly wear them out in public to the malls and restaurants around town after church and they turn into wonderful conversation pieces. About what though? 

Will it be a conversation about a loving Father who died for all of humanity whether Jew, gentile, gay, straight, black, white, rich, poor, popular or outcast? How He rose again to give life to all of us who are dead? Will it be a conversation about how the One and only Savior of the world came to bring light to our darkest places when we had no hope? Or will it be a conversation about how great your church is? About how your church saved your life? That the speaker really challenges you on Sunday’s or that the music is just like going to a concert.

The speaker may challenge you on Sunday because he is speaking truth from the Bible. However, the Bible was written by God not your pastor, and his amazing gift of teaching, well, that is from the Father as well. When a person claims their church saved their life or their marriage I am left to wonder if they encountered the same Jesus who invaded my heart. 

Sure friends of mine that gathered at buildings called churches spoke truth to me. They even brought me to those buildings a couple times a week. And I am thankful for them. But the church never saved me. A how-to guide and a cool youth program didn't change my life. The Holy Spirit through His people gave me a glimpse of who He was and I wanted more. More of Him. More of His truth to replace the lies, more of His light to invade my darkness, more of His rain to pour heavy on my impurities, and more of His faithfulness to flood my doubt.

There are a lot of churches that speak truth. You only have to open the Bible on Sunday morning to do that. But what is seemingly more difficult is for the church to lay down its own idolatry. I fear it has fallen in love with itself as the savior and rescuer. It is beginning to think it is the way the truth and the life and is allowing people to worship it rather than being a collective gathering of people declaring who they are because of who God is.

So, I will not worship a church brand. I am in love with my local church body because I am reconciled to them through Christ. I will serve my local church because I believe in pouring out all that He pours in. And I will be grateful to my God for providing the pastors, programs and people that are willing to participate in all the He is doing. When we as a church decide to lay it all down and live as if there is nothing better out there than more of Him, our lives will declare what no t-shirt could ever say and no church building could ever hold.