Why go to church?

   

  To start things off, I have two questions. The first one is what is church?  The second one is, why do we go? To throw out an idea to the first question is church a building filled with things that people call holy and where God is. Or is it a building where people gather to be fed spiritually and to grow together. Here are a couple of ideas or possible answers to the second question is that it is a place where we go to drink coffee, sing a few songs, hear someone ramble on for twenty five minutes to get some sort if itch scratched and then leave so we can get on with our week. Or is church where we plug in our air pods so we can listen to our favorite pastor or theologian as we run errands or be in nature and call it good.  Here are some observations of what the church could be. 

  For those of you who are fans of country music, you might recognize the name Toby Keith. One of his more popular songs is called I Love This Bar and the song goes on about how he love a particular bar because of all the different people from different backgrounds come to this place to be with each other. Most of these people would come from the wrong side of the tracks. What if the church became that place where we dropped the country club mentality of having to look or dress a certain way to come into church. I work with the 13 to 30 year olds here at Wal Mart who are either coming back to church or who are searching for something with a little more substance. I can tell you that their hairstyle is a little weird for my taste, visible piercings and tattoos are a cultural norm and their language can be a little rough most of the time, but here is the one thing I do know.  God loves them so abundantly that Jesus died a death and was raised from the dead so that we could have a relationship with Him. What would it look like not only if they came into our community, but also felt welcomed and a belonging?  What would it take for this to happen? 

  Church has to be more than hearing a good sermon or podcast. There has to be some sort of life change. John Wesley would call it Entire Sanctification or Christian Perfection. Others would call it Christian maturity. The concept is are we growing in grace and are we putting away the hurts, habits and speech that is not glorify God and that prevents us from being Christ like. The church is a place where we can find accountability so that we can grow and allow the Holy Spirit to take control of us. The church is also a place to show Gods love to others whether things are going well or things have hit rock bottom. It’s knowing when it’s appropriate to celebrate and when it’s time to sit and grieve with others and to pray with them. How do we do this and not feel uncomfortable during the tough stuff? 

  Let’s wrap this up by closing with Pastor Fred’s preaching passage of Matthew 16:13-18. Jesus ask the disciples the all important question of “ who do you say that I am?” After the Disciples listed off a couple of suggestions, Peter answered that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus admitted that He was who Peter claimed Him to be and that the church was going to be built on that. The church isn’t about the Pope and some Apostolic tradition or what program we can run to get people to come to church. Instead it is being transformed by the power and the grace of God so we can go out and serve other people, even the ones who don’t look, think or act like us. As much as we want church to be a building where we can meet God, it can happen anywhere. Some of the most memorable times I have met with God was not in a building and with people who I normally didn’t associate with. So here are two questions. The first one is what are some of the most memorable times you have had encountering God? Secondly, how can we serve others so they can experience the love and grace of God?

The wide and narrow road

   As Pastor Fred finished up the series The Impossible Gospel we dived into Matthew 7:13-14. The center of the discussion is the two paths that leads to two different gates. One gate is easy to find and allows for many to enter. The second gate is smaller and is designed for a smaller amount of traffic. Growing up on a farm we had the 12’ gates that allowed for tractors and multiple cows to enter at one time. Then we had the 4’ gate and that was often connected to a chute and it allowed only one cow to pass through at a time and the chute was about 3’ wide, so there was no room fir the cow to turn around and it kept the cows on the straight and narrow. The gates that Jesus was referring to was more about the way of salvation and not cattle handling. 

  This parable is talking more about how people are searching and gaining salvation. We live in a culture that claims that we should live our own truth and that there are more than one way into heaven. How. Often does this lifestyle tell us that as long as it makes us happy, we should do it, and this is how we find salvation or at least bliss. My first question is that what if our own happiness comes at the expense of someone else, should we still do it, especially if it someone we are close to and value? Happiness is often based on a feeling and is more me focused. Doing what makes happy is apart of the wide road because a lot of people are trying to be happy instead of content. 

  Another observation concerning the gates and salvation is that is Jesus the only way that we can be saved? Some would argue that Jesus is one of many options if Jesus is an option at all. Or we have people that say it’s Jesus pls something else. So here is my question, it Jesus isn’t the only option for salvation, why do we choose to be a Christian? It’s a lot of work, self denial and hardships. The rules also seem to be overbearing and exclusive. There are other religions that are more warm and fuzzy along with being inclusive that would seem to be better than Christianity if all roads lead to the same place. There is a bumper sticker that says coexist and it uses the symbols of the more popular world religions. As much as the people on the wide road want to believe this, at the end of the day they will become incompatible with each other because their core beliefs are all different. 

  The narrow road is filled with ups and downs along with heartbreak and joys. Is Christianity the narrow road because not everyone is willing to pick up their cross and follow Jesus? Or is it narrow because we are called to give up what makes us happy so that we can be content? In the book of James, he tells us that we are to consider it pure joy when we go through trials and temptations because it builds endurance, perseverance and is a refining process so they we become more like Christ. So I will leave you with these two things. The first one is what keeps you on the straight and narrow? Is it to become more Christ like or is our of fear or a sense of duty. The second thing is if it was easy everyone would do it

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead