Do Religious Experiences Validate Church Reality?
Do religious
experiences experienced during programmed-event-driven meetings, no
matter how solemn or boisterous the atmosphere, resemble true
Church reality? What passes for Church in Sunday-event-driven meetings
is so far removed from what Church reality is that it fails at even
being a cheap imitation.
Some institutionalized churches bring in big name
speakers, big name singers and set aside time for special meetings and
call what takes place in these event-driven meetings, "Church reality".
The meetings are set up by denominational organizers who, in some cases want to do a great work for God, but fail to see that Church reality is
about God doing His great work in and through
His Community of the Redeemed
in their
daily
living of life.
Institutionalism has reduced Church to being a
popular belief or assumption that has evolved around man-invented
ideologies that is accepted as the norm and is confined behind four
walls of a building doing event-drive-meetings, while God is looking for
His Community
of the Redeemed
to
fill the earth with expressions of His glory. This can never be
accomplished behind the segregated denominational walls of segregation.
Whatever the institutional walled-in church
accomplishes for God due to man-made effort is of little value in
fulfilling God's plan for
the Community of Humanity
.
Institutions
build large grandiose structures and call them "churches", we invent a
myriad of programs to keep people in the buildings
and sin-conscious
, but have little God consciousness and
little understanding of His purpose and plan for humanity. We have more
denominated trained professional ministers graduating from religiously
denominated seminaries than ever before who have little understanding
of Who God is
or Hid eternal plan
. We have seminars on spiritual warfare, how
to defeat the devil, prosperity and healing campaigns and spend huge
amounts of money on advertising to get people to attend these meetings.
But where is the fruit of the
living Christ
?
We pride ourselves of in that we are bible knowledgeable without realizing our doctrines are polluted with
man-made
denominational influences. The knowledge we think we know has made us
arrogant and obstructs our view of Christ who taught us it is being
loving that edifies. We have no song on our lips and no hope in our
heart because we have replaced true spiritual reality with religious
hyperactivity. Our spiritual elite denominated theologians sit in their
leather chairs and hand out directives as rules to be obeyed by the
spiritually depleted pew-warmers so they can be spiritualized to the
hierarchical acceptance of what spirituality is.
As
religionists
we are power-hungry and covet hierarchical positions as if climbing
the corporate ladder to success is a spiritual objective. We place much
value on numbers, programs, doctrines, rule following and budgets and
little value on loving people. Those who are invited into leadership
positions are denominationally trained to promote their denominational
preference or are famous and influential. We forget that spiritual
authority is not given to the savvy professional but to those who have
the Spirit of God within them and share in His is ministry by working
with Him.
Where are the people of God who are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the spiritual bankruptcy
of people who
claim to be followers of Christ
?
A true relationship with God brings us not only to the end of ourselves, but brings an end to religio
usity
as well. We will prostrate ourselves
before God
, where we lay down our selfish hopes, dreams and ambitions and He transforms us, and transfers us
from the pre-cross law living
to
post-
cross
grace living
where we rest in His love because of His grace as He does His work through us as the C
ommunity of the Redeemed
in
bringing hope to
the Community of
Humanity in daily living of life.
Not everything about the institutional church is good. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer. While there have been a lot of wrong done by some in institutional church there are those who have done a lot of good.
ReplyDeleteI thank God for a lot of things that have been accomplished over the years by institutional churches.
Many of the hospitals that are helping the sick and suffering today have been started by church groups.
Church groups have built orphanages and are helping those who have lost their parents.
In addition, institutional churches are huge supporters of different relief programs:
Compassion
World Vision
Zillions of different mission projects, all around the world
Inner city outreaches
Crisis pregnancy centers
Hurricane and disaster relief.
Food for hungry
Interaction
Red Cross
All through centuries institutional churches have sent missionaries around the world and have evangelized entire continents but sad to say today many of these churches need missionaries to come to them and evangelize them because many have left their first love and no longer believe souls are lost and going to hell without Christ. Some don`t even believe that the Bible is the infallible and inspired Word of God any more.
Is everything perfect? No
Is there a need for change? Yes
So I would like to ask those on internet who are always lashing out against the institutional church when was last time you helped to build an orphanage, went to a feed the hungry program and gave of your time and money, or built a Christian school or a christian university.