THE CHURCH ISN'T A LECTURE HALL

I sit at this computer day in and day out.  My first agenda is to post something real for where you live; for who you are.  That's an exciting challenge in itself as numbers say there are over 1600 of you out there reading these words.  What an exciting and wide array of personalities and prejudices.

So I often sit, as in this morning, just staring at a blank screen.  I wonder two things: what does God want you to consider and how do I communicate it in such a way that the message will resonate with the multitude.  Every post has the two of you in mind; God and you.

Church has been sideswiped by an innocent mislabel.  Church is not a framed building with stained-glass architecture where people flow in and out on schedule.  Rather, the real meaning of church is the people.  Church isn't a lecture hall.  It is a systematic arrangement of God-people who live bigger than they can imagine because He is.

We are a vibrant combination of where we have been, who we are, and what we will become.  All three ingredients formulate a fantastic combustible combination of vision and hope.  To focus on one or only two of the three will leave us deformed....or possibly unformed.

The church isn't a lecture hall where good people file in, sit still, look at their watches and file out in relief that it's finally over.  Church is life with meaning and purpose. Believers don't just acknowledge doctrinal codes with a shrug of indifference.  No.  We believe...we believe God will do amazing things through us that will glorify Him and bless so many others.

The church isn't a lecture hall.  It is a great gathering of people who finally find that illusive, What is life all about?, answered.  Pills and addictions are mere signals that the spirit of man is authentic as well as in the hunt for a satisfaction that is bigger than one can construct on his own.

The church isn't a lecture hall.  It is a wild life of what's happening now.  Yet, to be honest, this is not the vision communities have of churches.  Strong (but sad) impressions have been left that we are narrow, edgy, and highly squint-eyed in our judgment.  Our judgment isn't necessarily wrong; but we have failed to include ourselves in the mix of much needed improvement.

I would want every person who has found it very handy to dismiss church to rethink your conclusion.  Open up the religious can of worms you once set aside because you could see the holes in guys like me.  Look for a people who love God and who love others.  These will be alive; not just when they die and go to heaven....BUT RIGHT NOW.

The church isn't a lecture hall.  When you come across such, freely dismiss.  Yet, look for the church; the real one where a people sacrificially adore God and believe in what people can become.  I want in on that one.  How about you?