Church Optional

One the most important things for me as a pastor to remember is that Christians don't need me. They don't need a church either. They need the disciple-making leadership and fellowship that me and a church I pastor should provide, but all the other nonsense that tends to flow out of a typical church, well, no one on earth needs a bit of it. Last week we had a desperate and powerful prayer meeting at our church due to all we're going through. At the end I said that the church is not supposed to be about the church, but it so often is. It so often is all about us. It is Christians looking in mirrors. It is Christians performing in choirs for each other, but making zero impact on the surrounding culture, making zero difference for Jesus Christ in a world dying to know Him. The world is not dying to attend church services or listen to worship songs or sit through sermons. People need the Lord. They want Jesus. This is not news for most of us. The first Christian church service ever is recorded in Matthew 2:11: "On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh." We all need to see Jesus, worship Him, and give Him our best treasures. When we're together in His Name, there ought to be a sense that we've arrived, that we're home.

Are you "going to church," but unsatisfied with your spiritual life? Are you looking for the same thing the Magi were when you attend a worship service?