I was talking with my old youth pastor several weeks ago, and discussing how it's a struggle to be spiritually fed at the church I am working at."Dude, let me stop you there" he said
Long story short, he explained to me some church history, the reason church was started. So I ask you, why was the church started?
"To worship God" answers the average Christian.
To what?
"To worship God"
So what is church for?
"To be spiritually fed"
Wrong.
Church is not about getting "spiritually fed". Rather, it is the contrary. We need to go to church with a full plate. We need to go to church to worship God. Worship God in the hearing of His word, in communion, in offering, in singing. All of this is worship to God.
None of this has anything to do with being "spiritually fed". My generation is obsessed with that term. We have failed to see that, that is about as selfish as we can get in regards to church, the Bride of Christ. We want to make the wedding totally focused around our needs and wants.
We are called to come with a full plate of what the Spirit has done in our life that week, in order to communion with other members of the church. So many wonder why the church is so spiritually empty. The answer is obvious now. Because so many of its members come there in hopes of being fed, as opposed feeding the church, in worship to God.
So to my generation: stop church hopping.
Stop looking for a church where the messages are totally relevant to your life.
It is not about us.
It is about worshiping our creator.
It is not about getting spiritually fed.
Let us turn our focus from on ourselves, and back to God.
Oh please. When a child is born, the parents have a responsibility to it. God, therefore, has just as much responsibility to all his children. We throw 16 year old mothers in jail for leaving their children in a dumpster, yet in your view when He does this, he gets off easy. God has just as much responsibility to feed us as we have to worship him. And please don't throw the we'll get rewarded in the afterlife bit at me, because if God had wanted us to be patient, he woulda made us that way. Human beings, by definition, are impatient. We want everything, and we want it now. So if we give Him our praise, he should give us something back.. And when that does not happen, as human beings it's our incentive to feel gypped. And being spiritually fed is not just about expecting something in the here and now anyways. It's about expecting something that lets us feel complete and in synch with the spiritual world. And how is that not a good goal? Why should we just blindly follow something instead of searching for something that can really make us feel complete and advance us as both human and spiritual beings?
ReplyDeleteHey I TOTALLY agree with what you are saying (for the most part).
ReplyDeleteI am definitely NOT saying God shouldn't spiritually fed us.
I am just saying that church is a time where we should be focused solely on Him. Worshiping Him. Giving back to Him. Almost like an offering. As opposed to fulfilling our selfish desire to have everything in church tailored towards us.
But yeah. Sorry you misread me man, but believe you me I am noooot saying by any means God should not/does not spiritually fed us.
Sorry for the miscommunication on the blogs part and not making it more specific. Just talking about church, not life in general.