like a fire

Sometimes I wished the church was more like the business world. There are always the parallels of the “real” world and church and, though I think that whole idea is faulty, the truth is that the church is significantly different in many ways. When was the last time a church fired one of it’s members? Or docked their pay? (Ofcourse, this happens a lot with church staff, but you won’t hear about it)

Or take loyalty for example.

Most church-goers feel like it is completely fine to not have any loyalty to a local church. And really it is. After all, why should someone feel like they should be loyal to a specific church body when they should be loyal to the entire body of Christ? Even more important, why should they be loyal to a church if they aren’t “getting fed” or is they just don’t like the style of worship? There are planty of other churches that are glad to accomodate, so why not move on?

Is there any value to sticking with a church, apart from intrinsic value? Apparently. We treat the church as if it is a place or group of people that we hang out with as long as they serve our needs and desires. But the church is the bride of God and the body of Christ. How can God divorce His bride? How can we not be the body of Christ? We should be this everywhere and all the time. Fellowship is more than friendship. It’s more than resonating with similar people.

With the trend in people leaving churches, it’s no wonder that Barna predicts that the majority of Christians will not attend a local church body in a very short time. The only issue with this, is that who will get the body together? If the hands decide to go their own way, how will they help the rest of the body? If the eyes decide that they need to go play golf and hang out at the local pub or even worse surf the net, who will see for the rest of the body. Isn’t the church supposed to act like a body with each member functioning together with the rest of the body?

:: sigh ::

Now I feel like Andrew

I guess I should apologize.