That's a bit deceptive until you hear me out. I came to Christ 3½ years ago. As it did then, it still feels like I began a new life at that time. In that time, I've learned and grown in Christ. 3½ years ago I felt like I was suddenly married to "this guy Jesus" in some kind of arranged marriage. I was expected to love Jesus but I barely knew who He was. One thing I knew, though, is that I had committed my life to Him (and to loving Him) and divorce was never going to be an option. Over the 3½ years, I have trusted in Him in little ways and He has always been there to support me. This has helped to grow my love for Him. Over the 3½ years, I have worked for Him and participated in His plans, and this joy of teaming up with Jesus has grown my love for Him. Even still, my love for Jesus pales before what I imagine is the deep river of love a married couple shares after 50 years of marriage, and in my head I intellectually know that Christ's love for me pales even that example, and my love for Him will be greater when I am given a sinless body and am with Him! But I'm stuck here at 3½ years of age. My blog actually wasn't meant to be about me, although I suddenly wanted to share those feelings with you. I wanted to comment on a phenomenon I have seen in the past few years. A local, non-denominational, "seeker-friendly" mega-church was the church that I began attending after Christ got a hold of me and changed me. It fed me well, cultivated my spiritual walk, and connected me with dozens of other people who were more spiritually mature than I. But since the church caters to those who do not know Christ or those who have just found Him, their messages were simple and lacked meat. To use Paul's analogy, they served milk: But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, you are still worldly. About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God's word. You need milk, not solid food; for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. (Incidentally, it's bits like this that lead me to believe Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews.) Milk was exactly what I needed when I was an infant. I recognize this now, and am grateful to my friends who directed me to this "seeker-friendly" church. But I am also thankful that I was around very mature Christians who instilled in me to always hunger for more of God's Word. As I grew, I began to notice that the church wasn't feeding me as it used to. The messages and songs were good, but they could be better. I also began to notice that the church rarely mentioned the Gospel. Their philosophy was that the Gospel should be connected in their small-groups (of which I was a part of one). That's their strategy alone; other "seeker-friendly" churches I've found out do give the Gospel in the service. So I began to visit other churches. Over a period of a year, I attended over seventy different churches representing over fifteen denominations. Many Sundays I would attend two services, one in the morning and one in the evening. One weekend I attended three services: a Seventh-Day Adventist service on Saturday, another church on Sunday morning, and my seeker-friendly church in the evening. (That was a blast! I felt over-full in the Spirit after that!) With the assistance of 9Marks, I ultimately settled on a tiny plant church in my neighborhood. The church was Gospel-centric, had strong Biblical theology, and had a focus on reaching out to the community, something the Lord had been weighing on me). The church just so happened to be denominational (Presbyterian, in fact). Over the past few years I've seen dozens of my friends leave the original "seeker-friendly" church to join denominational churches (most of them Presbyterian, interestingly). Their reasons all seem to be related to this milk/meat problem.  Last night I was talking with a friend who still attends the "seeker-friendly" church. She just confessed that she's thinking of looking for another church. She says she's been feeling it for a while, but this latest sermon series they picked is sort of spurring her. They're spending eight weeks preaching from the Purpose Driven Life. That actually shocked me a bit, mostly because of the extreme distance to the Bible they are now at. Whereas before they'd preach from one or two verses (itself not much), now they're not even doing that. (It also didn't help that I finished reading Kingdom of the Cults and how many cults use "another" book as their authority, and also having just read Pastor Chris' blog on Rick Warren's suspicious theology. Anyway, I'm rambling. Many of my friends are leaving the "seeker-friendly" church after having attended for longer than I. I see this as a good thing. God is instilling in them a hunger for meat and they are acting on this hunger. I see "seeker-friendly" churches as Elementary schools. They serve their purpose, but students need to move on to High School. What worries me is that the church I went to does not tell you this; they would prefer to retain their membership. But this conflicts with their mission: to connect seekers with Christ. Mature believers aren't seeking anymore. Anyway, those are my observations. I wanted to share, and perhaps to encourage you to seek spiritual meat. 9Marks, linked above, is a great guide to looking for a church, and to see if your current church measures up to the Biblical description of what a church should be. |
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