Sip and Eat

Church isn't a place. Church isn't an hour a week. It's not our Sunday ritual. Church isn't a popularity contest... a right vs. wrong contest. Church isn't your assembly of high class people pouring out their sympathy on the lost world around it.

Church is not a house on a hill meant to shine above everything and everyone else.

Church is not walls and it is not the roof. It isn't the steeple and the bell. It isn't the pews. It isn't the decorations. It isn't the man (or woman) that works there in a fancy outfit. It isn't the bulletin. It isn't the readings or the confession. It isn't the guilt that keeps you going back.

Church is people... people who's hearts are beating more and more like God's.

I am sick of the country club. I'm sick of the coffee and the lunch. I am sick of the pretty sandwiches and the judgment. I am sick of the face of church. I am sick of the facade, the cracking, peeling myth that we are this shining, wonderful, holy institution that promotes the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the truth... the truth is much different.

If Jesus walked into our church today what would we think of him? What would we think of his mission? Would we throw down all of our stuff and follow him? Would we travel out of our comfortable suburban holes and work with the dark reaches of society alongside Jesus? Would we preach to prostitutes? Would we work with the homeless? Would we go to the sick and outcast? No! We send our benevolence to people who do that. We sip our coffee and have our perfect sandwiches and talk and talk and chuckle and show our church faces... while the disadvantage wait... they wait for the Gospel. They wait for the love of God. They wait for the church to do something... they ache for us to do something. But we just sip and eat... sip and eat.

WAKE UP! GET UP! DON'T WAIT ANY LONGER! LET'S GO.

Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

James 1:26-27 MSG

Church isn't the show and the face... its reaching out and helping people. Its love. Let our love shine out today.