HOW ALTERNATIVE IS YOUR CHURCH?

As I said Jesus came to set up an alternative kingdom. The question is, how alternative is your church? The church cannot reflect the alternative Kingdom of Jesus unless it is…alternative.

In my town and probably every other one you can think of, the church is divided up into separate tribal groups who meet according to their tribal rules every Sunday morning, 52 weeks of the year.

The tribal rules determine what you do when you meet. In most cases they determine that you have to follow the tribal routines fastidiously every week without deviation. They determine that a select few will do the same thing every week and the rest of the tribe will look on as spectators apart from singing a few songs.

The tribal rules allow everyone who attends to have a good time and feel good about themselves and to make sure that as many as possible contribute finance so that the tribe can meet next week and do the same thing again.

Tribal rules insist that in 12 months time the tribe will be doing the same thing without changing a single aspect of the tribal meeting.

Whilst all this is going on, Satan is out there in society wreaking havoc wherever he can get someone stupid enough to believe his lies. The tribe consoles itself that despite this being fact they are doing their bit to provide a respite from life’s traumas. If we can escape for an hour or an hour and a half from all this carnage, we can recharge the batteries that will allow us to cope with the mess that society is and then next Sunday we can do the same thing again. What you might call weekly pit stops.

Not exactly alternative is it if every tribe is doing exactly the same as every other tribe. Oh, but you say we are different to the other tribes because we sing lots of songs one after the other accompanied by a band that has keyboards, guitars and drums and we have a lively choir out front to encourage people to sing and we do a lot of shouting (in case God is a bit deaf).

And may I ask how is that going to defeat Satan…out there?

Well it does say that God inhabits the praises of his people.

And may I ask how is that going to defeat Satan…out there?

Well it fires us up to follow God.

And may I ask where to?

Uhm, where he asks us to go.

And where is that may I ask?

Uhm, I don’t really know because we don’t usually ask him. We try and work it for ourselves.

So, you have a king who wants you to follow his instructions but you don’t ask him what they are. How stupid is that might I ask. So what do you do with your time?

Basically what we do every week.

Sounds to me that what you are really doing is avoiding what you are meant to do and that is signing up for the army of God. All you are doing is playing in the sandpit.