Church Allergy

I was talking to a pastor friend today. He shared an interesting thing with me. He is allergic to the church. When he spends too much time in the facility we call "church," he actually gets physically sick because of the mold spores in the building.

I think that people can be made sick by the church...both the churchists and those who are entirely "worldly."

How true that is for the followers of Christ. The more time we spend "in church," the more we become ill. Our illness looks like this: We forget that we should value relationships with those outside the church more highly than our comfortable "church friends." We begin to adhere to the rules of the institutional church more than Christ's own teaching. We begin to serve ourselves, our preferences, and our needs more than the needs of those who don't yet know Christ.

This fact is obvious in my former church's discussion of music. Every new member of our church over the course of 5 years said that the music was what drew them to the church. Meanwhile, the complaints about the music were so bad among church people that a former sound man was having "discussions" in the foyer about me (the pastor) and how wrong I was about our music and that I was "destroying the church." He refused to see that the same thing that was an irritant to him was actually effective in reaching over 2 dozen new people.

Another example of this church-sickness involved our old fellowship hall. We re-invented that space as a youth center. Over 18 months, our youth center served over 500 teens with over 30 giving their hearts to Christ. Our youth group grew from 2 to 40 and our Friday night Youth Center served about 70 kids each week. Meanwhile, the churchists were complaining that we had "taken the fellowship hall away from them." Of course, they were free to use it any time but when youth were present. But that's beside the point. They didn't actually care who was reached. They just wanted ownership of the building.

The churchists who've been made sick by being in the church too long also demand that the pastor prefer them over the lost. Shaking the hand of old sister so-and-so is far more important than making sure the new person gets connected. Spending time talking to the pillars of the church is far more important that spending time with lost people. (Reminds me of a story involving Jesus and Levi.) Pastors who imitate Christ are said to spend way too much time with "those new people."

Church sickness goes even deeper within the churchist. They become more and more confident and smug in their own opinions about church while they are removed more and more from the real world. Ask a church-sick churchist to tell you about specific relationships they are investing in right now to bring someone to Christ. I guarantee it will be an interesting conversation. While they will say that reaching people is very important, they are not willing to get involved in that activity in their personal lives or in their church's services and religious product offerings.

The church sickness among the churchists has another symptom. The church itself, in their view, exists to serve the church goer. One of my pastor friends recently told me that during a review with his church board, a church board member said that he "focused too long on reaching lost people and now it's time to focus on us a while." Another pastor told me that a church board member liked that people were being reached, but that they should try to reach people "who are more like us."

These folks have a profound gap in their understanding of why the Church exists. The Church exists to "go into the world...and make disciples" and to "go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth." The pastors and leaders of the church exists to "equip the saints for works of service." I can't find anywhere in the scripture where it says that the Church exists to make church goers feel contented and happy.

A 500-pound man goes into a fast food restaurant. He orders the Big Burger and Extra Manly Size soft drink and fries. He consumes the meal and is still unsatisfied. He complains to the manager: "I'm not satisfied. This restaurant isn't feeding me." Perhaps the problem isn't the food. Perhaps the problem is that he is over fed to begin with. Such large stomaches are hard to fill. Maybe the churchist who has unwittingly become sick by being in the church so long needs to stop getting fed, get off his butt and exercise his faith a little.

There is another side of the church sickness coin. There are those in our society who have given church and Christianity a try, but who have seen it for the hypocritical mix of gnosticism and legalism that it is. When a heathen person looks at the church and sees us bicker over carpet color, argue about worship songs, say bad things about each other, and ignoring our moral code, what is that person supposed to believe? How can they not be made sick by the church? When drinking is talked about like it's the cardinal sin and yet a person playing guitar in the worship band has a well-known, multi-decadal affair, how can an outsider look on that as anything but complete and total disregard for the scriptures? It's just self-evident. And yet, the churchists justify these things while the average person with no church experience is sickened. And for good reason. Jesus is sickened by them too.

God save us from those claim to follow you. Help us to truly be the Church.