Tuesday’s thoughts

So I am still reading through Reimagining Church, by Frank Viola. His book has me thinking. Thinking about the church again. What it is today and what it is supposed to be. I obviously understand that churches are not perfect, and understand that we as believers are part of “the Church” no matter what. But I just can’t help but think of what maybe we could be, are we missing out on something? Something big?

I just finished a section in the book entitled, “Reimaging the Gathering Place”. Viola talks about how the church started in homes, and thats where it should be today. Instead we have moved into these huge buildings. I don’t want to get into the entire thing, because I could go on for a while, plus I think that you all should read it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions and thoughts. There were just two things said in the chapter that got my attention. Here is the first, “most modern church buildings reflect the boastings of this world rather than the meek and lowly Savior whose name we bear”. I think this is pretty true, isn’t kind of strange that there are so many expensive things inside the churches, flat screens everywhere, expensive furniture and art, the sound equipment and lighting are pretty crazy. I admit it is attractive, and draws people in the doors. But what message is it sending?(Again, this is just me questioning, I dont think I have all the answers.) I actually enjoy most of this stuff and have never really questioned it. But just because I enjoy it doesn’t really mean a whole lot. Maybe without even thinking about it, we are sending the message that we should have it all together, we should all be up to date with the latest technology, we should have our houses decorated just as well? Maybe I am rambling, but I just question the way we portray our God in our “church buildings”. Jesus came to this Earth and made himself the lowest of low. The dude was homeless while he was here. I just dont know if that correlates with our “buildings”

The second thing that caught my attention sort of goes along with this first point. But Viola points out a stat that Barna used in his previous book. This stat is, “institutional churches in the U.S. alone own over $230 billion worth of real estate. And much of that money is borrowed (debt). Christians give between $9 to $11 billion a year on church buildings.” That is a lot of money, right? And it all goes into buildings? Is that really how we should be spending our resources? I can only imagine what $11 billion would do to help homeless, hungry, orphans, the needs of the body. It is just all puzzling to me. Perhaps we should reimagine the body of Christ and what our purpose really is. Is it to build buildings and put really cool things inside of them? I do understand that Jesus was relevant to his time and culture. But are we trying to make Jesus too cool? To hip?

Again, I just want to say I do understand that the Church does do good things, and that God will work with what is there. There are plenty of great things happening in Churches all over the world. I am a part of ones of these churches. I just have questions about weather or not all of our focus is in the right place. If all of our resources are going to the will of God, or if they are going to what we want?