Sunday, February 24, 2008

A "Downer" in a successful church

Yesterday was my birthday and we attended a large local church that prides itself in good, modern preaching. The congregation is obviously wealthy (no homes less than $700k in the area) and worship was well attended. There were about twenty children in attendance. Good. I was hoping for a meaningful and challenging message, a change from the smaller congregations we have visited. I should have known better. (After all, they didn’t know it was my birthday.)

My first warning came in a line from the ‘Call To Worship’ -”God Justifies us by faith and not by works.” I’m not sure what that even means but it certainly doesn’t sound like God really want us to do anything, does it?

The service continued in a nice and predictable manner. The music was good, the choir excellent, but it should be, considering the money they’re paying the section leads.
The sermon started out as very promising. The speaker did a great job of telling us about what Jesus’ calling his disciples would have meant to them, how the power of the Romans and the priorities of that empire was against God’s kingdom, how the call to repent meant a complete turning against those values. I thought, O Boy! At last I’m going to hear something real!

But he just stopped. He gave some platitudes about how we are called to believe and do better. Nothing about how the values of our ruling materialism is just as powerful and insidious as Rome ever was, how we are lulled into following the current ways of death as truly as the ‘holy’ people were two thousand years ago. Nothing. No learning. No challenge. I wanted to leave after the sermon, but Judy wouldn’t have it. Not even on my birthday.

This congregation represents my last hope for congregations. Do any of you know of a place where I might find any truth preached? I don’t care what name is on the sign. Church, Temple, Meeting, Pub - I don’t care.
If I can’t find some existing group soon I will have to try and start a gathering of my own. I would much rather not. But as I’ve said, I need to be fed with community worship; things can happen there that are unique. But most of the time I attend worship I end up mainly frustrated and saddened. I can do that on my own, thank you very much. Really, I need some help here.
Thanks.

“I hate your solemn assemblies, filled with iniquity! I will not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your doing. Cease it. Learn to do good; seek justice. The land shall be redeemed by those who repent.” - the prophet Isaiah

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