There was a trend for awhile among people to wear cloth bracelets saying, "What Would Jesus Do?" or "What Would Jesus Say?" It makes me think of what Jesus would want us to do when it comes to assembling together as believers. Would He want us to have an elaborate building to meet in with thick carpeting and expensive interior design? Would He want us to truly get to know one another, or would he want us all to have superficial relationships? Would He require us to pay ten percent of our income in order to be fully accepted as part of the family of God?, or would any money be required at all? If there was any money brought forth at a meeting, where would it go, or what would it be spent on? Would it go to a family in need, or would it go to a twenty thousand dollar parking lot, or to a four or five 'hundred' thousand dollar church building, or even to a thirty or forty thousand dollar one room chapel. What Would Jesus Do???...
My first adult experience with meeting together to pray with others was in Vietnam. We needed no elaborate place. Our unit had a lot of casualties. When ever it was possible for us to pass through base camp after we had lost a few men, the chaplain would fly out to us in a chopper, and bring his cloth, bible and a small podium. A few of us attended the service, how ever many that were able to be there at the time, which was usually about ten or twelve of us. The reason there were always so few of us was because most of us were either dead or wounded. We'd find a place on the ground to sit on our steel pots in our dirty fatigues and listen to a short reading of scripture and a kind word about the men who had died, and then the chaplain would say a short prayer, like a burial prayer. We, of course, were emotionally torn up over losing guys that we were close to, who had been together with us for a long time. The whole thing only took a few minutes. After it was over, nothing much was said among us. We just picked ourselves up with our heads down and walked back to the rest of our unit to get ready to move out, back into the boonies to search for "Charlie." It got harder to keep going after each one of these prayer sessions for the dead.
"Back in the world," several years later, I attended church for the first time. I went along with my Aunt after she invited me to go with her one Sunday evening. I remember listening very carefully to what the preacher said and how he said it. Like many others, I doubted that there was any significant amount of sincerity in organized religion, but the need to be with other believers and not be alone with my beliefs had grown to the point where I was willing to tolerate a little deviation from reality to be with other so called believers. I'd already experienced a drastic change in my life after turning to God in CA, so God was not a mystery to me and I was very confident of my understanding of Him. The church was an old country church, and the people there seemed very sincere and down to earth. Their meeting together was definitely not some kind of ritualistic show of some kind. It was nice to be with other serious believers who prayed together for one anothers needs. Unfortunately, however, the need to ask for help with paying on church building expenses wasn't brought up to the congregation and the only ones aware of the financial situation of the church were the ones who paid their ten percent, the ones on the inner circle...
I'd been trying to convey to a close cousin of mine during that time, who was like my own brother, that there really 'is' something to being a Christian. I was unaware that he had been the gas truck delivery man to this church on a regular basis. Consequently, while telling him one time about how I liked going to this church, he 'laughed,' and told me that the ones in charge were notorious for not paying their gas bill! This blew my mind at the time. It's a number one, prime example of how detrimental it can be to talk favorably about a church rather than relate something personal about God, to a non-Christian. Any momentum I'd gained in relating to him something positive about God, up until that time, as far as he was concerned, had just been taken away. I'd been close with my cousin, down through the years, and communicating to him what I'd found to be the truth was something I felt very strongly about. I had up until that time, believed that the church I was going to was a good example to the rest of the community of God's truth and had obviously placed way too much assurance on the institutional church to communicate Godly principles to someone. Because I wasn't part of the inner circle, no one had told me that they'd been having financial problems. Needless to say, I would have helped them pay the gas bill, or bills, if I'd known they were having problems...
Anyway, this separation among believers and having a lack of communication about what the church is doing is a very big problem. Having an inner circle of the select few, for those who chose to live by the old Jewish law and pay their tithe, is extremely counterproductive. Instead of their being a spirit of openness and transparency, there is an unspoken lack of togetherness preventing the development of trusting relationships. It creates an uncomfortable atmosphere in the congregation consisting of two kinds of believers, not carnal minded believers or spirit filled believers, but guests and members. While operating this way, because of the general awareness of the distinction between the two classes, the effectiveness of a church is practically reduced to being little more than a religious country club rather than a group of believers meeting together to fellowship with one another? In the book of Acts 10:34, Peter states that he realizes that "God does not show favoritism." Am I brother Dale, as I have been called, or am I brother Truman?? Am I second rate, or am I equal with everyone else?? Even though I've never heard this argument before, I'm sure there are a lot of sincere believers out there who have put up with this kind of taunting sort of insult from tithing believers for many years. The chilling reality to it all though, is that it's next to impossible to find an ordinary church in America, as well as in other countries, that doesn't preach the false doctrine of tithing...
0 comments:
Post a Comment