A church or The Church

I would like to take some time to tackle an issue that has been heavy on my heart for some time now.

Cultural relevance.

This question of cultural relevance can be seen everywhere. People are coaxed into our nations many Church's by any number of things: music, shock value, lights, camera, action, even sex and the marriage bed. Nothing is sacred. If it will draw people in it has the potential to be used to do just that. The real reasons, the Gospel and worship seem to take a back seat to all of this man made hype.

It is not your pastors personality or preaching style. It is not whether you have a contemporary or traditional worship service. It's not the friendly smiling faces that may greet you at the door. It not the size, location, or architecture of your building, it does not matter if it's a new church, old church, house church, or rented out space church. It's the Gospel.

Martin Lloyd Jones in his book "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" while speaking about the Poor in Spirit, has this to say, "There is a tendency rather to exalt a certain aggressiveness and self assurance and to justify a mans making use of himself and his own personality and trying to put it forward... The advertisements that are being increasingly used in connection with Christian work proclaim this tendency very loudly. You read the old records of the activities of God's greatest workers, the great evangelists and others, and you observe how self effacing they were. But, today, we are experiencing something that is almost a complete reversal of this. Advertisements and photographs are being put into the foreground.

If someone has been chosen by God to be saved none of these things will bring salvation. It's not as if God needs us. Men dream up many things to bring people into their churches. The Gospel does not need men to make it look more attractive. The Gospel needs God. The Gospel is not about mans glory but Gods.

I am not saying that all of these things are worthless. I am saying that when these things become who we are or what we fight for or rely on they become worthless. Man has no power to save the lost. That power belongs to a far greater God. Rom. 1:16 speaks of the Gospel as being THE power of God for salvation.

Once a church becomes more interested in numbers then they are about worship and the Gospel they are coming dangerously close to being more of ''a church'' then The Church.

The book of 1 John talks much of self examination. Self examination is important for The Church as well. Is it all about Vanity Fair and the wisdom of man to attract people or is it all about the Gospel and real worship? Are we trying so hard to look like a church that we are in danger of missing the point?

We serve a great God. It is all for His glory. Let us never forget this all important fact!

Col. 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.