WHO'S YOUR GOD?

In my 54 years as a Christian I have attended various churches. Baptist, Methodist, independent, charismatic, Pentecostal, brethren, charismatic brethren, house church and Anglican.

Apart from the house church and charismatic brethren, all the churches whatever they called themselves all did the same thing at the same time and with the same results in most cases, notwithstanding that some of them were quite good as churches go and I enjoyed being part of them.

The focus of the church was their Sunday morning meeting and in many cases you were judged on the basis of your attendance at that meeting. With a few variations every meeting was the same. It comprises of hymns or songs, a prayer, communion, an offering and some preaching where one man stands up in front and tells everyone what he thinks a verse of scripture means. I realise that there are exceptions to the rule but I am not talking about them.

The congregation then leaves with maybe a chat to one or two friends and in most cases never to see each other again until next Sunday, unless you are really spiritual and meet during the week for another sermon and a bit of praying.

Now let’s say you are one of these churches and in your town there are seven brothels full of women servicing the lusts of the men of the town. If what the scriptures says is true then Christ died for them and God doesn’t want any of them to perish. How is your stereotype service going to give them the chance to hear the gospel? Are any of the prostitutes likely to come into a ‘church’?

Having been involved with Teen Challenge who minister to that type of person, the chances of you having any effect on a prostitute is nil for the simple reason you are demanding that they meet you on your terms instead of meeting them where it hurts.

Paul said he wanted to be all things to all men. Would your church be caring enough to say “we have a group of people that need to experience the love of God? We need to know how to reach them and we may have to do things a bit different. Show us Father what we need to do to reach them.”

If God said to turn your building into a café and lounge and ditch your Sunday morning ritual, would you do it? If not, why not? Isn’t the eternal destiny of these prostitutes more important than your little rituals that make you feel good?

I know this. Until we crucify the God of the Sunday morning meeting, we are not equipped to bring the gospel to anyone because the word tells us that we are not to have any God’s before the one and only God. And that includes our rituals.