I mean, is the Church just another one of those service organizations?
Of course, there is an aspect of service which the Church is to do, we are called to good works, called to serve our neighbor, but could this orientation taking over the real rational for the establishment of Christ's Church?
Seeing the Church through the model of being a service organization is easy to do, you can look at it as another corporation providing a certain service to the market. Perhaps one service is to advice people how to live happy, healthy, wealthy prosperous lives, where the pastor is CEO and the elders are line Vice-Presidents.
There is some morphing happening here. When the Church morphs to just another service organization there is a sure side effect on the nature of Christianity, its uniqueness goes out the door too. The band wagon is on the roll though, imagine if you are a pastor and you have no message but the Gospel? When you see all those around you in ministry are converting to the service model and they are experiencing results (for a time, you can bet they will get good raves), won't you feel pressured to convert too? How will you hack that?
I have no doubt the Church will be there till Jesus comes, Jesus promised this. But I think the Church that Jesus returns to will be the peculiar, small, obscure, ubiquitous people probably not as influential, not wealthy but struggling and ignored by the world.
21 comments:
That picture is amazing. Mega-church doesn't seem to fit. Has anyone yet coined the phrase "Giga-church"? "Tera-church"?
Pr. K.
I got surprised too, blogger at first showed it all in full view but now it is chopped off.
Giga-Church?
You would be the first one to coin that word!
LPC
A young woman was recently telling me that she hadn't found a church yet.
She said she was considering going to one of these style "churches".
I asked her what she thought they were doing wrong? (the mega-church in question)
She looked at me in a puzzled way.
I told her that the Church has never been that successful, so one would have to wonder what these 'new' "churches" were doing wrong?
S.M.
I get awfully sick honestly just by thinking on what goes on in those large churches. I have been to a few here. I also have been to the largest church on earth the one in Korea - Paul Yongi Cho's or is it David Yongi Cho now? He changed his name. I did get impressed with the spirituality of the people there, the goers are sincere until I read what the pastor there was teaching - a type of Christianized shamanism and then I got sad.
I think the Church Jesus will return to will be a Church that is considered by the world to be filled with fools. I honestly think that.
LPC
LPC,
I agree.
I hope you and I and many many more are in that number of fools for Christ.
- Steve
May Christ find us faithful.
LPC
Dear Kuya,
That's *no* CHURCH!
Yes bro, it is a concert or some kind of mass seminar.
Good to hear from you A.S.
LPC
Good Grief. Its as big as the Eurovision Song Contest.
What are they doing wrong!
They get much bigger crowds at a football game!
Louie,
If the question was asked in the context of brainstorming session, nothing is wrong. ;-)
It is one large meeting for a giant pep talk, the typical Americanized Christianity adopting marketing hype and hoopla. Would you agree?
LPC
LPC,
I agree whole heartedly!
i thought at first it might have been Hillsong but this bigger than Hillsong's Senior pastor's house on Sydney Harbour (Jesus said " the poor you will have with you")
Matthias,
They do big things in USA, what we have here are copy cats.
This is Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen's church.
The Sydney pastor must have a different Jesus, what do you think?
LPC
Didn't you get the memo?
Peter Drucker is the newest Doctor of the Church!
PE.
by the way things are going, these guys will be declared church fathers.
LPC
Some of these guys ought to be declared church 'feathers'.
"They've swallowed the Holy Spirit...feathers and all."
Well, I need to post more about Vista and Runzas to get the message out.
Looking at my page stats, after the most recent ones -- allowing for recency effect -- the posts read most often on my blog are the ones I wrote both in late 2007 about Vista Home Premium not really running well on 1GB RAM like they said it would, and about that Nebraska delicacy, the runza!
Druckerise that!
I will Drukerise Runza here.
LPC
The Jesus that Joel osteen-who incidentally is going to Hillsong's conference- and Hillsong worship is obviously not the same Jesus you and i worship LPC. Blessed are the meek ,but this picture is a show of arrogance and affluence (?effluence),Obviously the old baptismal hymn " Follow Follow,I will follow Jesus,anywhere everywhere I will follow on" has become "
"Follow Follow I will follow jesus,prosperity,vanity ,I will follow on,Follow Follow i will follow Jesus,just as long as i get rich like they say on Hillsong"
Matthias,
It is interesting, when I was in charismania, the folk there sorta pride themselves of being spiritual, but as we can see by their methods, they seem to be very worldly in their values.
One of my friends long time ago got retrenched. In her charimatic church, she heard that they needed to give lots of money for their church's building program, she was told the church has to stand out in the community, it has to be big and tall and it has to be impressive. otherwise the neighbors will not notice them. Needless to say she believed in this philosophy and she gave a good sum to her church.
I do not know how they could think that they are more spiritual than the rest of us when their value system is so fleshly.
LPC
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