Churches

John 21:18, “Truly, truly I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.”

For whatever reason God has decided that one of the things that grieves me is when Pastor’s and church leaders are critical of other ministries or other Christians. (And yet I am guilty of the very thing I hate on occasion.) On one level is it with such arrogance that the criticism comes. As if their calling, their ministry, their efforts are more pure, more godly, more God ordained then their fellow laborers. I don’t know the motive of their heart or the origin of their criticism, but I could speculate that based on it is the lesser congregational leaders often criticizing the larger congregations that jealousy could be at the root.

Just the other day I saw a post of facebook of a Pastor criticizing a congregations worship as entertaining and motivated by anything other than God. Wonder if the Pastor ever actually attended one of the services. I wonder how many people are blessed by the presence of God in that “entertaining” service. For me you can keep the pipe organ, give me the drums, keyboards, and electric guitars… but that is off topic.

The truth is that churches, congregations, are not The Church. They are a part of The Church but reality is people gather in communities and around common bonds, whether it is worship style, décor, preaching styles, length of service, doctrine, a host of reasons centered in culture. Why can’t God have equally called one pastor to tend His group of sheep in one manner and tell a different Pastor to tend His sheep in another manner based on the community served? What we really need to be concerned with is, why do I attend the institution I attend?

The above passage may seem completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. It was said by Jesus right after He told Peter three times to tend His sheep. It was foretelling of Him being led to the cross and a place He did not want to go. But it also pierces the point in that there is a time in our life where we go where we want to, and there is a time in our life where we go where we are led. I go to a church where I have been led, and yet there are many there who go because they want to.

We need to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and stop worrying about everyone else. Of the passage above T Austin-Sparks says the Holy Spirit will “pierce through traditional and formal religion or ‘Christianity’… is your religion a matter of attachment or adherence to a system, a historical tradition, a family inheritance; and so on? Or is it born – is it a birth in you; is it something that has happened to you; is it your very life, your very being?” The Holy Spirit will “demand to know whether the reason why you are where you are, are concerned for what you are concerned for, are connected with what you are connected with, and are disposed as you are, is because your particular temperament leans that way. You are artistic and mystical in your tastes and constitution: therefore you choose or make your religion after your own image. Your temperament is melancholic, and so the more abstract, profound, serious, intense, introspective, and speculative, appeals to you and finds a natural response in you.” It is not our responsibility to be concerned for someone else. We must ask ourselves if we “make God, Christianity, Christ, the Bible, after (our) image.”

T Austin-Sparks goes on to say, “Or again, you are of the practical temperament. To you everything is only of value as it is ‘practical.’ You have no patience with these contemplative people. You are irritated by the ‘Marys,’ for ‘many dishes’ are your concern. To you, how the end is reached is of much less importance than the end itself. You are not bothered much with imagination, and you would put all the value on things done – how much there is actually to show for your day. Your God and your Christianity are entirely, or almost entirely, of the practical kind, after your own image. And so we could go on with all the other temperaments. But this will not do, for Christ is not any one of these; He is different. He may combine the good in all, but that does not wholly mean Divine nature. He is different. All this is the human soul, but the essential nature of Christ and true Christianity is of the Divine Spirit – it is heavenly! If new birth means anything, it means this, that another nature and disposition is born into the believer, so that he or she is "carried whither they (naturally) would not."

Pay attention… “Christ is not any one of these; He is different…” No Christian congregation contains ALL that Christ is. No doctrine is superior to the doctrine and law of love. And since none is perfect, no denomination has it 100%, then who are any of us to cast the first stone?  (John 8:7) Who are any of us to judge by what Spirit man comes to know Christ. (Mark 3:29)