Concerning weirdos and other topics...

Some things that have sat on different back burners that I'm putting forward on a list so I can clean out those areas to make room for more:

First up - God makes fewer promises than we like to attribute to him. The idea that God is our butler or personal shopper or some kind of divine Santa Claus is still out there in church culture.  

It is as if, under that mistaken idea, that he's a guy who we have to be really nice to in the hopes that he'll fill our list of wants - debts paid, cash in hand, illnesses cured, relationships healed, consequences of old decisions removed, etc.  

The thing is, God never promised any of that and doesn't.  That does not mean that he can't or won't - but that idea doesn't come from scripture anywhere under the New Testament.  

Even the Old Testament didn't offer that idea - it said that if you were perfect in your keeping of the law, you'd be blessed with food, protection from enemies, and other basics - but certainly not wealth, immunity from death, etc.

This kind of takes many people's motivation to pray out at the knees.  It shouldn't because there are many other things to talk with God about, but the average church doesn't say much about that "little talk with Jesus" beyond getting your sins forgiven (which is already done anyway) and asking for stuff.
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Second - One of our biggest concerns, from feedback or questions I've received in recent months has been, "How do I know you're good with God if you're not showing up to church?"

Well, you can't.  Even if a person shows up every Sunday and at every other time a church gathers for any reason, you can't tell anything about their relationship with God.

You can tell they're good at attending something and you can hear what they say or do when they're there, but it tells you nothing at all, in reality about where someone's heart with God is located.

The reality is that you can have someone "showing up for church" almost all their life and it have nothing to do with whether or not they've had an encounter or started a relationship with the living God.  

That probably should be the larger concern with most people, but they're usually concerned with attendance. I understand why people lean into attendance and participation as a gauge for church buy in, but it's not a good "God buy in" measurement.
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Third - The scripture says we are a peculiar people - not weirdos. The word peculiar that Peter uses in 1 Peter 2:9 isn't our word for peculiar. It's more of an old boundary term that was used "back then".

Peter was saying that "inside these boundary lines that God laid out are God's special people". It was about possession and location, not social quality in relationship to the people around us.

I heard too many people say, "Well, we're supposed to be different" and refer to this passage as if their feelings of social awkwardness could be helped by saying "God said we are to be weirdos".

On the plus side, that interpretation DID give people who felt social awkwardness the feeling they have a home inside the church and gave them comfort - but it is not what God was having Peter say.

Peter says we have our identity in God through Christ. He wasn't saying "Hey all you people who didn't get to go to prom - you can come to my prom!" Again, he welcomes us all, but that syrupy '80's spin on a self-esteem Jesus isn't what Peter was saying with the word peculiar.
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Fourth - Singing isn't worship. We mix up the pop culture idea of our church songs with the idea of worship.  We have "worship leaders" which really means song or music leaders or directors.

Singing can be worship, but we use the two so tightly that we're missing out on what worship is and making it an emotional or even intellectual verbal action that can have nothing to do with God.

The whole idea of worship is jacked up in most churches to start with, so I'll do it no justice here.  Suffice to say that the idea of "worship services" misleads us into replicating an Old Testament gathering with New Testament replacements for what happens inside of it.  God didn't ask for that, we just assume it.

In Romans 12, Paul tells the people to offer their lives as a living sacrifice and THAT is their acceptable and pleasing worship to God - not "going to church", singing, listening to a man talk, assembling, etc.

And he said that because the Jewish element in Rome most likely kept pushing synagogue style gatherings for "worship" and Paul wanted them to see it's about your life, not just a ritualistic gathering.
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Fifth - The “failure” of evangelism in the US isn’t lack of desire to share Jesus, it is actually a worship of upwardly mobile, middle class, selected subculture comfort. We refuse to see people who are just a little bit “too different” from us, but also *too close*. 

We’re comfortable with people whose distance from and access to us is under *our control*. We can choose how much they interfere with our life. We can pick them up & drop them off at our whim. We chose and/or schedule who gets the good news from us, when it’s convenient. 

It’s no wonder many accuse churches of a having a “white savior complex” because they desire to assuage their unnecessary and undeserved guilt from failures to solve history’s evils & the world’s problems by participating in (typically futile) efforts to look good, doing “feel good” interactions, led by and promoted by people who can get/act weepy in a moment’s notice to further the cause.

But the church bills and staff salaries get paid and all the “right causes” get supported by hosting good PR times, regardless of the actual seeds planted or fruit that might grow, artificially or otherwise. 

It’s something people need to be aware of so they don’t listen only to voices that desire to create perpetual, safe, guilt-laden, shame based, good ole boy church growth that keeps the money coming in, even if it keeps the lost out.
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Sixth - Churches have to have special outreach events because they’ve never taught their individual members how to share their faith in daily life. They can share "church" usually, but not their faith.

And, as the old saying goes, "You have to keep providing people with the thing you attracted them with if you want them to stay around."  Events are nice, trust and dependence on God is harder to market and sell.

This is probably the hardest thing for many to hear but it is the likely the gateway to understanding why churches struggle with "growing" or growth so much.  We're/churches are trying to build personal social communities, not necessarily sharing the good news of God through Jesus. And they are different things.

That hurts our feelings to hear that at times because we love the good feelings with get when we see our kids and families enjoying things so much "at church".  

God doesn't hold it against us as a sin, but we do suffer the consequences of our delusion and/or decision to believe we're sharing Jesus when we're actually sharing our personally enjoyed social events.
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Finally - If you're a believer, God is good with you right now, as you are. You're invited to know him more and walk with him, but it's not a condition, per se, of having the forgiveness of your sins - that's already done.

Growth in a relationship with God is possible and available, but churches often wrap it up so tightly with their existence that many who are repelled by their particular church experience also walk away from God, assuming they're they same thing.

Jesus came to bring a change in how we relate to God - we no longer have to go to Jerusalem or some mountain - it's wherever people who want to know God in spirit and in truth are - that's the connection.

Jesus died for all sin so that he could send the Spirit and, for those who chose to know God, the Spirit joins you and never has to leave because sin is no longer counted against you.

From that point forward, it's not about sin management or appearances - it's about you knowing God and walking with him - not performance, but relationship.
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Okay, that's a nice cleaning off of the notes app for now.

Grace and peace.