Church's Faults

I love the church. Not only do I regularly attend church, but I now work at a church. The following things I'm saying are NOT geared toward a particular church, but the world church as a whole. Quite honestly, these things I'm saying are quite opposite of how I feel at my new church.

1) We preach about love, but rarely show it. We as a church talk about how we should be God's love to others. Yet, we are so unloving. We judge others--we label them as sinners. We shun homosexuals, we turn away the homeless, and we put ourselves above others. We say we love them, yet we do not welcome them into our church. So how are we as a church supposed to teach love when we don't show it? Are we saying to only love the "worthy?" The house of God is a hospital for the sinners, not a meeting place for the saints.

2) We harp on the value of missions and the importance of tithing, but we spend millions of dollars on a high-class, high-tech sanctuary. I don't mean that our sanctuaries should be old and run-down, but I think that we should consider what we are showing. Is the latest technology completely necessary? This past week I got the privilege to attend a very large church. It was absolutely beautiful. Yet, all I could notice was all the wasted money. Nothing is wrong with nice things (I just bought a brand new phone, so I really don't think that new things are bad...). They had two Mac computers (how about a less-pricey computer that gets the same job done?) and automated blinds that slowly rose during the "send off" song (which were more than likely a few thousand dollars a piece). This all wouldn't have bothered me as much if they didn't talk about missions during the service and said, "Please be generous in your giving" during the service. Why not, as a church, spend less on high-tech things and more on what we preach about? The thing that made me think was the people around me that kept saying, "that's cool" and "awesome" at the automated blinds. We live in a world that is so caught up on technology. Yes, I admit that it's cool...but also so unnecessary. Christians harp on giving yet we do a poor job of showing how to give.

3) Christians of the church do a poor job empowering our children and youth--the future of the church. While the church I work at prides themselves in the children and youth, many churches are not like that. So often children and youth of the church are forgotten or left out. The ideas and opinions are often overlooked. If we don't feed these children now, what will our future church look like?

4) Worship services are being treated as a concert instead of a service to glorify God. I love Christian concerts and I love to worship at concerts. But the difference between a church service and a concert is the purpose behind them. For a concert, the purpose is money. The church these days is treating the church service as a performance instead of a service glorifying God. I feel like it is often done for all the wrong reasons. I love that my old church had a band--it makes worshipping fun for me. But it also didn't feel like a concert--I felt like the band members were doing it for all the right reasons. A worship service is for God's glory, not anyone else's.

5) Service is supposed to be the basis of the church, but we often hand out some charity or hand over some money and forget about it. Service is not only giving money, it is providing means and then giving the service of prayer. Service is a daily living, not a charity. Service is supposed to be something we live, not something we do. We should stoop down to the level of the broken and the hurting. Just giving out money isn't always the answer. If someone is homeless, giving them money is great, but getting on their level and serving them, feeding them, is more. Jesus stooped to that level when he washed the feet of His disciples. Us giving away stuff is like Jesus telling a servant to wash the disciple's feet. Yeah, their feet still would have been washed, but how humbling and how selfless is the act of personally stooping to the lowest of low and washing their feet. I feel that the church hands out so much money, but doesn't actually wash the feet, the church just gives means for someone else to wash their feet.