How do we stop ‘pimping’ of the church?
A Facebook group titled “The Levites” asked the question…
The Lion Tells His Own Story
How do we stop the pimping of the church? With each new conference comes a new gimmick, DVD, etc. Each new worship experience comes with a new fund-raising effort and sales pushes! How do we stop the prostitution of gifts in the church? Let’s talk about it!
Instead of offering my responce on Facebook, I decided to write this blog.
“…until the Lion tells his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Ask yourself this question “What is the Church?” When we answer this question correctly we discover something quite simple. It amazes me how many people won’t study the Word or misuse the Word. God didn’t make it difficult. We fail in knowing the history OT and NT. We interpret the history for our own agendas.
THE WORD MADE FLESH asks us to ‘love one another’; he commands us to go out and teach the world about love. He did not ask us to compete with Him, bear false witness against Him, use his name to break the commandments or relay his message for self aggrandizement (the act of increasing the wealth or prestige or power or scope of something). He doesn’t want or need the types of messages being relayed in many of the congregations of today’s denominations (or non-denominational gatherings).
Ask yourself how is it that Christians all over the world can live in faith without all of the glitz we see in the U.S. Ask yourself how is it that worship takes place in the smallest of villages where love and family and community prevail.
Jesus’ mission was to reach the ‘lost sheep’ of Israel. They were careless about the law, the religious leaders had become enemies of God; but God loves his enemies. He came not to condemn us but to save us from ourselves.
The standard of God’s law set in Deuteronomy 30:11-20 is not incomprehensible or unachievable. It is the human element called ‘free will’ that over the centuries has tried to bend and twist God’s law to serve themselves. Whether it be power, greed, or their own sense of deity (politics) humans will persist in developing their own ‘church’.
This free will also gives humans the ability to reject those who teach values which go against the simplicity of God’s love for us. Instead, today we see people following the populist thought -Sadducean mindset, of mega congregations. The easiest way to “stop pimping the church” is to realize the ineptness of the teaching; to know the history is to dare to repeat it.
I know, I’ve been there. Now I find the simplicity of worship without fanfare, the quietness of prayer, and the thirst for study brings me closer to God than I’ve ever been in my life.
© Sharon Moore Stenhouse
-All Rights Reserved-
