Feeling good at First Church …

When Jesus arrived somewhere, so did the huge crowds.

Then He taught pure truth. Undistilled, nothing watered down. Straight to the point.

After teaching, He left the people to accept and then act on what He taught, or reject His teaching to do their own thing.

Then He moved on.

We don’t do that.

Instead, we act like we care more about people walking away rejecting Christ than Jesus did Himself. We don’t want people to leave, so we coddle them so they’ll stay, kind of like this:

“Welcome to the First Church of Coddle, where your comfort is our first concern! Please enjoy the free espresso and croissants this morning at our guest services boutique. We won’t bother you with the gospel, and we go light on any other scripture. We dummy down our teaching, make sure sermons are very short and loaded with props because we don’t think you’re intelligent enough to get anything very deep.”

“We won’t create the odd sensation of biblical worship that could make you feel uneasy, so we’ll treat you to a concert complete with colorful lights and fog machines. Yes, fog machines!”

“Your babies will be cared for in a state-of-the-art nursery, your children will be busy with games and crafts elsewhere, and your teens will be entertained so you can experience this time uninterrupted.”

“You won’t have the slightest idea of our doctrine, theology, or other deep stuff. Instead, this morning will be like a conference on your ‘felt needs’ where we’ll provide you with 3-5 steps of how you can feel better.”

“So welcome to the First Church of the Coddled, we hope you ‘friend’ us on our Facebook page!”

That’s not far from the average church today.

A recent radio ad for a local Baptist church hit home on what — if truth be told — many people really want in a church. The radio commercial featured the voice of a woman saying: “When I go to church, I don’t want it to be like another Stephen Covey seminar on how to feel better. I want to know what the Word of God says about how to live.”

Wow, so simple!

I really don’t care about all the excuses many church leaders could list for why they do church in such a non-biblical fashion. I care about the church being the church, about the Word of God being preached, taught, lived and modeled like the early church did, and the result of that being lives reached for Christ. I care about the Bible being the primary guide for our faith … we say it is, but how we live out our faith and do that as the body of Christ often doesn’t look anything like the New Testament church.

That can only be done from a biblical perspective that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and undergirded with prayer.

Then we have to let people make decisions. And we have to expect something from those who claim to make their decision for Christ. We also have to disciple them, not for a while, but unto maturity. And we have to equip them for ministry. Being connected together in one body, we also have to love and support one another during all this.

Wow, living this way would take a real commitment. It would require us to think differently, feel differently, and act differently. It would require us to be different, more like the church we read about in the New Testament.

It’s much easier to be coddled.

Which version of church and Christianity are you settling for?

Scotty