Church is Obselete
The Church is a dying animal. Not that it has lost its soul or has succumbed to the ways of the world, it has just gone the way of the 8-track tape. Or more appropriately, it is going the way of the print newspaper. The Church is clunky..Nearly everything that you can get at church, you can get in another way more cheaply, of higher quality, and without all the bugs that actually go with going to church.
Church really is fundamentally a form of media. Like the telephone, or radio. Or a print magazine. In the medium of church, you can join a social network with people of your own theological stripe. You can receive teaching that challenges you. You can hear (allegedly) good music. You can receive counseling and comfort in times of distress. It used to be that the Church was the indispensible provider for this kind of content - but that is no longer the case. Social networking has taken off in so many ways. And music? Is there a church ANYWHERE in America where people are happy with the music?
Mark Allender
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posted by Mark Allender at
1:03 PM
1 Comments:
Suppose the church isn't obsolete? Suppose the church can't be quantified as "the church"? To call it "the church" would be to suggest that there is exactly one, and only one right way to do things. What if that isn't the case? Here is what I mean. God is a pretty complex being, creature, spirit, dude...whatever you want to call Him. Suppose in His complexity, there are more facets of him than can be captured in any one church of any kind. For example, let's say a church is REALLY good at reaching families. Well, then they (almost by definition) aren't going to be very good at reaching singles. It would take at least two churches to accomplish the same thing. But because there are millions of people and hundreds, if not thousands, of needs, then many churches would be needed.
This is not to say that there is more than one way to God. That is foolishness. But if I need to go to a sports arena to get my competion fix, and a pizza shop to get my craving fix, and a quiet bedroom to get my alone time, well then, wouldn't God need many such areas as well?
It is true that man can get a lot of the things he gets at church elsewhere, but that begs the question...what is man missing by not being there?
And by the way, I can't find a church where all the people are happy with the music either...including in those churches that try to do a mix of the traditional and contemporary.
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