But more is the American way, right? We're supposed to have more money, more stuff, more power, more food, more, more, more. It's the core of who we are and what we strive after.
Sometimes I think that the American dream invades our churches. Pshh, "sometimes" I think that? I'm growing more and more convinced that our churches are drowning in a sea of "more." We're constantly looking for more people, more ministries, more donations, more conversions. Our country is afflicted with a disease and our churches are doing nothing to help. In fact, our churches often pull people deeper into the sickness.
The problem is not the church that Jesus started, but rather the way that we've come to interpret his church. We've become so enamored with being relevant to our culture that we succumb. We are conformed to the pattern of this world (Rom. 12.2) so we've lost our ability to speak a transformational word. When the divorce rate, the abortion rate, the adultery rate, the drug abuse rate, the murder rate and just about every other statistical measurement of brokenness reads the same for those in the church and those outside the church, there's something wrong. If the church isn't different than our culture then we don't have anything to offer our culture.
Our world cries out for more and the church echoes the hungry cry. It's time for use to stop. It's time for us to be transformed. Our leader and founder, Jesus was a homeless middle-eastern man who relied on the hospitality of others. What if our churches relied on the hospitality of others? What if we didn't always come in to save people with our fat wallets? What if, sometimes, we needed saving? What if we told people to take their donations for one Sunday, just one, and bless their neighborhoods instead of giving to the church? What if?
How do you think we could give up the need for more?
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