The Problem of Church

The devil is cunning. He knows how to take anything and separate God from his children. He even uses church.

The Church is perhaps the number one antichrist. When I speak of the Church I mean the building, business, and religious culture, not the body of believer. In 327 A.D. Constantine effectively changed  church from meaning the body of Christ followers or family of faith to a building, organization, and empire. As a result the church today is not what was intended. Prior to 100 A.D. The Apostles gave us a powerful model in the New Testament of being the church, it comprised of meals together, prayer, worship, helping one another, and reading Scriptures. The setting was in homes, and people were lead by Holy Spirit. There was no liturgy, lengthy sermon, or power point presentation. No, it was a family of followers of Christ fellowshipping in simple ways like eating and praying.

The church institution today is a tool for antichrist. The very concept of creating a separate place, practices, behaviors, traditions, and rituals from daily life makes it an enemy of man. Prayer, seeking the Lord Jesus, and fellowship in His presence is suppose to be twenty-four seven and it is suppose to permeate the life of a Christian. You are as much with Christ in prayer as in playing with children, in the Spirit in the sanctuary of your own home as in Sanctuary of cathedral or church building. The otherness that religion has created, where it is only spiritual to attend Sunday service, read the Bible, follow tradition, and doing rituals like Our Father Prayers creates a divided heart in people. They feel that their spiritual life is separated from the natural life, and so God is in the other, where you have to cubical yourself and do these rituals that don't pertain to ordinary life. Soon an animosity sets in or people decide that their spiritual life has nothing to do with their natural life and so they can do all the ritual and root, but live really repugnant and reckless lives. The stench of this separation and otherness causes children to see God in small terms. They begin to think, "So God only likes me or hears me if I come to church, sing a song, and listen to a sermon. And anything I want to do outside church, Bible study, and ministry is vanity and secular and not of God. Then that means God doesn't like me, because I like to ride my bike, read books, watch movies, play Ninja Turtles, and so forth." It creates a paradox in people, they begin to see God as only in small cubes of church ministry, church service attendance, ritualistic prayer, and Bible study. They fail to see God has you in ministry playing Ninja Turtles or riding a bike, they fail to believe God wants them to see prayer as breathing, that its more about connecting inside to the Lord than some ritual, and they fail to see God isn't interested in them attending a service, and would rather have them be in his presence and connect thru prayer.

We have perpetuated a separation that is stigmatic and malignant. People see Jesus, Church, and the Bible as being stuck in a building where you can't laugh, talk about ordinary life, and that isn't really relevant to their life outside those spheres. A terrible thing has happened, they see Jesus as being in building and tied to rituals that they really don't care much about, when He really is within them, is involved in ordinary and loves when enjoy a good pie, a good piece of music, or having good time with family and friends at movies, on the couch, and etc. The truth as one theologian said it is this, "everything is spiritual." Man since 100 A.D. has tried to put God in a box and make people relate to him like the pagans did through distance, rituals, and service that seems foreign, ancient, and out of touch with their hearts. The reason for this? Power and control. Men wanted people to need them, desire their advice and wisdom instead of going to the Holy Trinity. An antichrist spirit crept in and made people believe church was this alien and abnormal series of practices, when it is so natural even a child can do it! Jesus said, "The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life abundantly." (John 10:10). Christ came to ordinary people and lived in ordinary setting. His Disciples were ordinary fishermen, and folk who even were a reproach on society and whom religious experts hated. Jesus spent as much time eating, drinking (moderately), playing, talking, and relating in ordinary ways as teaching, preaching, doing miracles, and more. The Christian walk is not suppose to be this strange society and culture where you do rituals and separate the spiritual from material, no it is combination, where spiritual is found in ordinary and material, where God is breathed into every part of your life through Christ and you find joy, hope, and love stemming from recognizing Him in every moment. God put the desires in our heart, If you desire to have family, God desires it (Genesis 7:28). If you desire to play with children, Christ is for it (see Matthew 8:13).

We are not suppose to be living a double life, one which contains our desires and the other dogmas. It is suppose to be fusion of spiritual and material, extraordinary and ordinary. Jesus Christ himself is the ultimate example, He is one hundred percent divine and God, and yet one hundred percent flesh and Man. As Christians are lives are suppose to be both, one hundred percent God and Man, one hundred percent spiritual and material. There is not suppose to be distinct separation, for there is none in our God, Lord, and Savior Jesus Christ. Every part of our lives is to permeate and be saturated in God's Spirit. We are spiritual when we eat bread at dinner and read the Bible, we are spiritual when we go to a service or watch Sports on T.V. Long as our heart and conscious is right before God, we need fear no condemnation, in fact it says, "there is therefore not condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1).

It is the separating of our spiritual life and material life that has caused the Church to splintered and for people to lose their zeal for God. The picture in their minds is that to be close to God requires doing practices, rituals, recitations, and religion they aren't interested in. But we forget God came to us, he stepped into our rituals of drinking, eating, and sleeping to stay alive. He came to us, He did not require us to come to him or do acts to be accepted. We are accepted by Grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His Death on the cross, and Resurrection from the dead. God came to our level, mingles in our daily affairs, routines, and more. God is fine with talking to you in your heart, soul, spirit, and mind while you brush your teeth, sit on toilet, and drive a truck. You don't need fancy tunic, trumpets, taper candles, golden trinkets, and temple robes to be close to Christ. You are already loved and accepted.

Today ministry has become this idea that you have to enroll in seminary, join a church group, or do something that makes you suffer and is outside your normal routines. But the Apostles did ministry when they least expected it. They would go down to a river to pray and woman named Lydia would be saved and baptized. The Apostles went merely to pray, but it became a place to preach and teach the gospel. It is when we go to grocery, go to garden, go to do the myriad of things in life that ministry pops up. People have been taught that ministry is like class you enroll in or club that requires all this work to join, but it really is daily living with divine presence of The Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and Holy Spirit. Your quirks, personality, interests, passions, and unique things about you are all conduits for Christ presence and His message pouring out to others. You can be doing something you enjoy, meet someone and say something and that person got saved because you sowed seed and that person heeded the sowing because you were first Christian who honored them, liked Star Wars, and didn't tell them to go to church to meet Christ.

The problem of the church is that it has become stumbling block. Instead of being what it really was and is suppose to be: a family, a community, and a body of believers; it has become institution of religion, politics, and ritual that makes people think more about how they are perceived by other believers than practicing the presence of the Holy Spirit. Instead of being a family unit in faith that tests things, talks problems out, sees God for answers, eats together, enjoys interests together like movies, books, and video games, the church has become monolithic building of business and busyness that keeps people on a treadmill of trying to earn God's approval, the approval of leaders, acceptance, and one day family. The Church according to the Bible and Truth Faith in Jesus Christ accepts people, loves them, commends them to grow, encourages (instill courage) to change for the better, and lives the truth that God permeates all spheres of life, not just Sunday meeting or rituals invented by Church Fathers (Not the Apostles, circa 100-300 A.D.) and Medieval priests (circa 300-1600 A.D).

To put it plainly as a pastor said, "the church lives in bubble. It has its own music, movies, culture, food, and etc. But it doesn't go into the world like Jesus said, and its bubble is not from God." Out of fear the Church has created a subculture where they have acceptable music, movies, and everything else. But it isolates people and makes them unable to reach their world for the Word. Granted we should have meetings in homes, and spend time with believers and set aside time for the Lord in private; I am not arguing for secularization, but rather that we don't look at God, serving Him and relating to him in such narrow terms as Sunday worship, Bible Study, and more. I have had the Lord speak to me more clearly in a Star Wars film than in Scripture. This doesn't meant Star Wars takes more precedence in my life than Scripture, but it taught me that "everything is spiritual" and that God and how he speaks, how I learn, and how we relate to spiritual in the material cannot be put in a box. Fear is what created the church after the Age of the Apostles. The Apostolic Fathers (not Apostles) afraid of heresies created the very important creeds such as Nicene Creed, but in addition they created other Talmudic and Extra biblical traditions to curb their fear of heresy which gave birth to a worse heresy from within: distance from God and separation of the spiritual and secular, or the earthly and heavenly.

We must return to the Bible and see that "everything is spiritual." Sex, giving birth, eating food, watching a movie, and reading the Bible is spiritual. Everything God made is good, it only becomes evil when we abuse it and misuse it. Sex is good in marriage to procreate, bring two people closer together, gives both spouses pleasure and release. But sex outside of marriage creates abortions, broken families, orphans, sexually transmitted disease, broken hearts and more. God's laws aren't at war with our cravings, our cravings and desires become at war with God's law when we misuse them, abuse them, and make them conduits for sin.

When you do laundry or say Lord's prayer; when you eat bread or seek Emmanuel the Bread of Life, you are spiritual and doing ministry. God is involved in every part of your life. He loves you, all of you, as you are, with the ticks, quirks, idiosyncrasies, and flaws. He picked you in your sin and offers salvation to you through His blood, death on the cross, and Resurrection. He doesn't want to leave you stuck in sin and bad habits and choices, but he loves you no matter what. God's laws are to build the love in your life: if you don't murder you don't go to jail, and so can have family with ease or follow your passion. If you do not commit sexual immorality you will not get diseases that kill you or effect your future spouse. God's Laws are based in love, they are loving commandments meant to keep love alive, build love in your life, and let love shine in you before others. Amen.