If you're anything like me, you want to be comfortable. I want easy access to food. I want my furnace and I want my air conditioner. I want my remote control at my fingertips. I want my warm shower. I want to buy what I want, when I want it. I want to be comfortable. Actually, I deserve to be comfortable. And when I'm not comfortable, I get even more crabby and selfish. Are you smelling what I'm stepping in here?
Isn't that how we often think? We have sense of entitlement. We deserve so much. I often wonder if this is an American disease. I wonder if that same cultural norm invades our view of the church? We want to be comfortable. We want to walk into a nice place with a soft cushioned chair with a cup of hot coffee with excellent music and excellent preaching and a "wizbang" place for kids to be cared for and then we want go home after an hour. That is a good church experience...and if it isn't comfortable, I get crabby and selfish and I may not come back!
I know that may be extreme, but I think our view of the church can get skewed by our expectations of what church is. I'm not throwing zingers out at anyone in particular (in fact, I am talking very clearly to myself!), but I do wonder if we have made our expectations of church into something that isn't what God intended.
Even in this time of uncertainty in Cedar Lake, I find myself more concerned about a building, land to build it on, a swift completion date and what it will look like. That is not the church. The focus should be the church, the people, the Good News, the truth and grace, discipleship and faith. But that would be uncomfortable.
I wonder a lot. I wonder if it's time to get really uncomfortable.
The empty vessels make the greatest sound .
Posted by: Nike Free Run Shoes | March 07, 2011 at 01:51 AM
Being comfortable is one of the things people truly desire. It could be being comfortable physically, financially and spiritually. Meanwhile, others only want simple things like a couch on the porch facing the sunset.
Posted by: Dell Ledermann | October 24, 2011 at 01:13 PM