The topic this week is difficult. It is intended for Christians……..people who have accepted Jesus as their saviour. I want to begin with a disclaimer. It is not my intention to damn Christians who don’t practice their faith the same way I do. This post is not about issues of style.
We moved to a new town. We tried out several churches. We settled in on one that we liked. We tried out several different services based mainly on the type of worship music that they played: rock, acoustic, traditional organ, etc. If you had asked us what we were doing…….we would have said we were “church shopping”.
Years later, our long time pastor retired. We hired a new young pastor. And a lot of people left. They went “shopping” and found a pastor that suited them better.
Church shopping is common. It is a normal part of the landscape. But, there is a danger. Every church is different. Every pastor is different. In our case, we were concentrating on issues of style. And that is fine. But, there are issues of substance. It is possible for a church to choose policies and beliefs that are different enough that they are a problem. I recently spoke with a leader of a church. If you asked her, she would describe herself as a Christian. The name of her church included the word Christian. She is a good person. She does a great deal of community service and she guides her church to do so as well; but, she said, “I have a problem with Jesus”.
And that gets to the heart of this week’s post.
I am concerned about an idea that pervades Christianity…….an attitude that, I fear, is growing. It is the idea that we get to go shopping. We get to try on the different “flavors” of Christianity until we find one that suits us…….until we find a church that agrees with us.
At the extreme…….we find a church that tells us that what we believe……is right. We find a church that tells us that God…….agrees with us.
And this really doesn’t sound too bad until you give it a good hard look.
Imagine your first day in paradise. You walk into a room. You have a legal pad and a pen so that you can take notes. God walks in. He sits down across the table from you. And the questions begin. What about abortion, divorce, tithing, etc. In essence, the meeting is a job interview. The purpose of the meeting is to determine if the guy across the table has the same values. I suspect that something along those lines is what we all expect.
But, here’s the thing.
Who is asking the questions?
Who is the one trying to decide if the guy on the other side of the table……is “suitable”?
Is God searching you…..to see if you are a good hire?
Or
Are you grilling God to see if his positions align with yours?
In essence, the question is this:
“Who is in charge here?”
It sounds ridiculous. But, isn’t that what a lot of us are doing when we go “church shopping”?
If you shop around until you find a church that agrees with your positions in every particular…….if you shop around until you find a church that doesn’t convict you of any failure……if you shop around until you find a church that tells you you are right……then you will learn nothing. You will not grow. Because, you will have become the guy in charge. You will have become the guy who plans on interviewing God to see if his positions agree with yours. You will have become the guy trying to decide if God is a suitable hire.
Good Luck.
“I don’t know if there is a God, but if there is, he’s got a lot of explaining to do.
Robert Dinero describing his plan for conducting his upcoming “job interview”.