I Hate Modern Christianity!

This blog post has been coming for four weeks. During the "message" yesterday, it exploded.

Why do we need CCM in the church? It's cause it's the only time that people feel ALIVE! To get some kind of psyche to get feeling towards God, we have to use music to feel alive. Why?

The CCM is rarely based on God. It's all based on us and on our feelings towards God. "How lovely is the Lord" is probably the most you get in the first line - then "how my heart longs for and EVEN faints for You." "I love You endlessly." (Like we do...?) How WE feel towards God. Why is there nothing like the wonder of the hymns of 'Love Divine', 'Amazing Grace'? No soul repentence, little adoration of God. It's all spiritual sensuality - because worshipping by feeling is the only way people feel alive. The reason people sleep around so much before marriage? Because in their boring lives, it makes them feel ALIVE. The music does the same thing spiritually. It controls the emotions and how people worship. How did things change?

I bet people hardly even notice what they sing any more, as long as it has words addressed to "You", or what could probably be more correctly referred to as the Unknown God. The music makes them feel worshipful.
It all relies on the beat.

I look around at the Christians during the "sermon", more popularly, the "message". They're falling asleep. Mobile/cell phones are out. People stare at their feet. Girls play with their hands or fingernails.
Why are there no men? The boys so weak a girl can lead them? Partly to do with what the Rebelution spoke about yesterday. They don't set themselves any higher standard because they're unconsciously/subconsciously influenced by the world's standards. The world provides more excitement than the church, and why? And all the church does to compensate is bringing in rock bands. Drum kits. Teen groups. Youth outings. Barbeques!

The most exciting parts of Sunday for people are the "worship" time and the "fellowship" time afterwards - more accurately it could be called the gossip time. How much of the sermon do you hear being discussed afterwards, compared to the latest fashion trend or "who's going with who"? Little to none! Why?
The guy who "spoke" the "message". Don't you hate that? What happened to the designated man of God, the "preacher" who "preached" the "sermon"? Preaching is a gift of God's Spirit on selected few. So many "feel" a "call" to the "ministry", which turns out to be little more than misguided passion which gives them a chance to air their opinions on God's Word, not to reveal what God has shown them through His Word.

The way you can tell? Milk vs. meat. Where do you see the church shifting on its seat in conviction rather than boredom? When the Spirit of God moves, He brings brokenness before healing. Conviction of sin, before repentence. Milk? "God so loved the world, He gave His only begotton Son". Beautiful, heartfelt, life changing Scriptures that have been pulverised by years of use and misuse by misguided "evangelists". You want to evangelise? Focus on letting God change you, and He will do the rest.

Milk. "You need to be saved". Saved - from what? Or a commentary on several verses - personal opinions.

But the church give little option as what to do with the passion. You can go into the ministry, become a missionary, join the worship group, or become part of the leadership team. That's about it. How about reaching out in faith to God and WAITING ON HIM! Yes! Patience! Not the I CAN'T WAIT GOD YOU HAVE TO MOVE NOW! You WAIT!

And time limits. I'm sick to death of hearing about time limits. Where did the times go where people were so starved for the Word of God that they would spend the entire DAY in the church listening? When people were so starved in their souls that they would forget about their stomachs?
"I'm just checking the clock, otherwise there will be a lot of burnt dinners at home." And people shift, and smile, and look at the clock too. "I have fifteen minutes left." Since when did you confine the Spirit of God to a ticking clock?

There was a man talking about an organisation he'd formed yesterday, to help teens in their "induction into adulthood" process. Good idea, wrong procedure.
It's a good idea, to have a ministry for teens 18-24 who don't know what to do with their lives. It starts too late. People need to get involved before that. And it needs to be practical to be applicable to EVERY DAY life. Doing the SMALL things, not just the BIG ones! I'm not ripping the experience. It's a good idea. Good ministry. But to give people a "passion boost"? Then you hit mundane life again. WHY is there NO ministry that reaches out to support that? (Oh, I forgot, that's the church's job.)

Life is NOT all about the exciting experiences! Exciting experiences are selling points. People will go from on to another just to get a thrill because something in their lives is missing! They haven't learned to find joy in the small things, because when you're doing small things, over and over to the best of your ability and unto the Lord, you find joy in simply serving God where He has called you. You can go get involved in the thrills. But the excitement as always will fade. You'll always be looking for something new. Learn to find joy in the small things God has given you to do - and look and WAIT on Him to lead you to bigger things - IF that's His will. And people with ministries - I know you're dreaming big, and I don't want to discourage that. But STOP. SELLING. IT. ON. EXCITEMENT.

Back to the CCM. I have no problem with CCM now. I just have problems with CCM in worship. As my friend Rob Klingler said, "They (CCM songs in worship) are just basically love songs where they replace 'baby' with 'Jesus'. Talk about taking the Lord's Name in vain! Probably very few even realise that they're doing it, and those that do, don't."

I wonder how many even realise what it entails, or how building their Christianity and Christian walk with God off soppy sentimentality affects their life in God.
I see men in the pulpits near tears. Not because of the seriousness or the weight of the burden God has laid on their hearts, not because of the gravity of the souls God has placed in their care, nor because of the conviction of sin, in themselves or the hundreds of lost out there on their way to hell, but because of some emotional, sentimental point they're bringing out in their opinions on the Word of God. It's not wrong to be sensitive, but there's a line between sensitive and sentimental.

I'm stronger than a lot of the guys that I know, in a way - emotionally. I wondered why. But couldn't it be that the church is raising men to be sentimentally centred on worshipping God rather than by faith and His Word?

How many churches today promote the reading of the Bible, and yet, the Scriptures are read off a screen rather than from the Book? Are you going to read it for yourselves, or are you going to be reliant on the "priest" mediating between you and God?

To quote a good film, (Cromwell, 1970), "We need MEN with fire in their bowels who fear the Lord and not the Enemy!"
We need men who leave the church shifting in their seats with conviction, not with boredom.
We need MEN who preach fire and brimstone, NOT TV shows.

I am sick to death of hearing "speakers" ask the congregation whether they watch a certain TV show, highlight the main points for those who don't, comment on it, and then mention the little subsection they wanted to apply to their "message". Where are the examples from the Word of God? Since when do you take a fantasised reality example from the world, and attempt to apply it to God?

Pain brings healing. Pain brings growth. For the butterfly to come out of the cocoon, it must struggle. For the patient recovering from a near death operation, there will be a lot of pain. If there is no pain in your Christian life, may I suggest that you just might have fallen asleep in your chair listening to your comfortable Sunday morning sermon? Or that you may never have been touched by the Spirit of God in the first place?

Pain hurts, and we're tempted to flee from it. The church that preaches a comfortable gospel, a happy family that interacts in a gossip circle and perhaps once a month evangelism on the streets, with youth clubs, and mother-and-toddler groups, and ladies' meetings, how often does it get you writhing in your seats with conviction of sin?

Are you coming to church out of a sense of duty, or because it's part of your regular Sunday morning routine, or because you're STARVED for the Spirit of God to cause pain and growth in your life?
Death is never easy. Dying to self causes pain. When you're tempted to lash out at the cause of the pain, just remember - God's trying to change you. Don't complain about His tools. Because preachers are human too, and easily discouraged with the burden they have to bear.

Preachers, men who have been called of God with a burning passion to feed the people of God, who know that their job is to cause pain and not to put cushions on lives - keep going. Keep leaning on God. The way is hard, and your job is harder than most. Don't give up. We need it. We need the pain, the fire, the refining. God has called you.

Speakers, men who feel an impulse to share their thoughts on God's Words, and the application in their lives - I'm sorry, but it isn't a sermon. Get out of the pulpit and leave room for God's men.

God, raise up men, real men, who will set Your church afire with the blaze of conviction and repentence. Change the hearts of the people of God so that they will starve for the Words of God and accept His correction with eager sorrow so that they may be found to be growing daily in You. Change the church so that our desire will be to seek after You, and not after emotional contact with our feelings. Reach out and set the church ablaze.

In Christ,
Jane