If you’re a parent, sometimes getting through to your child is like yelling at the wall. It’s not productive – at all. Whether it’s due to apathy, defiance, or flat out disobedience, they sometimes don’t want to listen or obey.
This is what it feels like trying to wake up the American Church today. Generally speaking, the church is so self-absorbed and wants to be liked so badly that it’s forgetting what it’s supposed to be doing. It is lowering God-given standards in hopes that the seeker or the lost will fall in love with it. In the meantime, the people in the pews are getting more and more anemic, and the world just outside the front door is becoming more and more lost and helpless.
America was once the greatest sending mission force the world has ever seen. We were sending more dollars and people to fulfill the Great Commission than any other nation – ever. Yet now, we tithe only 2-3% of our income. Doesn’t God own our finances? Haven’t we been crucified with Christ and no longer live? Where is the sacrificial living and giving? I can tell you firsthand that we are mainly padding our own pockets and pews. Let me give you a real-life example.
One of the main ways Feed the Hunger tries to partner with churches is through packing food at events called Packathons. I cannot tell you the number of times we have been rejected by churches for the same reason: they’re in the middle of a building campaign. It’s as if they’ve rationalized that doing missions is optional when you’re expanding the sanctuary lobby.
The decadence sometimes baffles me. I know of a local church that spent a million dollars on a new steeple. I know of another with a hundred members that was spending tens of thousands of dollars per head to expand their sanctuary. This was not a church that was at capacity nor was there growth. Have we lost our minds?
I can’t speak for them. I don’t know if they asked God what to do before they started expanding. My hope is that they at least considered alternative ways for the funds to be used or tithed on what was raised to serve humanity and save lost souls.
A million dollars can provide almost 3.6 million servings of food to the hungry in Jesus’ Name. Think of the outreach possibilities for a church that is not inwardly focused but outwardly focused. It is unstoppable, and the gates of hell cannot overcome it.
May this become true for the American church before God’s judgment comes – because it is coming without major repentance and revival. If not, may it quickly become outwardly focused in response to His judgment. Maybe then we’ll start to really minister to people’s needs for the first time in a very long time.
My Bottom Line: The Body of Christ is by definition the people who follow Jesus. The church has never been a building.