Excerpt from Chapter Eight, CHURCH: Worshipping ME ...

From time to time as a high school teacher I will get cornered by a student who needs to “talk.”  I would say at least 90% of the time it has to do with relationship drama.  Not that I mind listening, but that’s usually all they’re really coming to me for anyway...someone to listen.  They know how they feel, they know they’ve been wronged, they know how things should be, and they just want me to know that they know all that.  Fair enough.

But one of the funniest exchanges I ever had was with a young man who came and said, “Mr. Heck, can I ask you a question.”  I told him to go for it.  And he fires back, “So does God talk to you?”  I laughed a little and asked him what exactly he meant by that.  He told me he meant exactly what he asked: “Do you hear God’s voice telling you what to do?”  Thinking for a second that this was going to be a much more spiritual and deep conversation than what it really ended up being, I sat down and said that while I don’t ever want to limit God, I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced anything like that where He has audibly (or even in my head) spoken and directed me to do something.  As I was about to continue and explain that I do think God speaks to us through other Godly people, through circumstances and certainly through His revealed Word (the Bible), he shouted out in angry triumph, “I knew it.”  Obviously curious what he was so worked up about, I asked him what had prompted the conversation.

He explained that his girlfriend of 6 months had just dumped him and in the process of doing so had told him that, “God doesn’t want us to be together.”  After telling him I was sorry and had been there before, I suggested that maybe what she meant was that she didn’t think her relationship with God was growing because she was too consumed with him.  He said, “Nope, she said that God spoke to her and that she clearly heard Him say that He didn’t want us together.”  I stood there rather dumbfounded for a minute and finally said, “Well that’s tough, I don’t really know what to say.”  And that’s when he cracked me up by responding, “Exactly!  How do I argue with that?  When she says God physically spoke to her and told her to get away from me, how do I trump that?” 

I lost it.  The kid had a sense of humor, so I told him maybe the best response would be to text her that night and tell her that you just got a call from God moments earlier who informed you that He changed His mind and He did want them together.  He said he would think about it.

Honestly with as funny as that situation was (and it really may be the best way to break up with somebody, by the way…it leaves them totally incapable of rebuttal), we do this often in our churches as well.  We take our own personal, selfish wishes and desires (like this young lady’s desire to date other people) and call them God’s wishes.  We decide how we “feel” about something, and then we look to proof-text it as validation of our feelings.
 
In other words, we feel like two people who love each other and want to be “married” should be something we celebrate and accept whether they are the same sex or not.  After all, we have wonderful friends who are “gay,” and they aren’t going to hurt anyone.  So we go and drudge up a passage somewhere that says how God loves everyone, and that we aren’t supposed to “judge,” and then announce that those verses validate our support of gay marriage.  We take Jesus’ command to the teachers of the law who were preparing to stone the adulteress when He said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” conveniently drop the period in the middle of His sentence leaving out the loving part where He told the sinner to “Go now and leave your life of sin,” and claim Scriptural vindication of our opinions.  That isn’t seeking truth.  That’s not honoring God.  That’s mocking truth and pretending that we ourselves are gods.  (You can flip back to Genesis 3 to see how well that approach worked out for Adam and Eve.)

In January of 2014, a local paper in central Indiana wrote a heart-rending story about the United Methodist Church in Alexandria that had been torn apart by the “gay issue.”  The church’s worship minister, after having served for several years, “came out” as a practicing homosexual and later resigned.  Since the United Methodist Church policy adheres to God’s standards of sexual morality for its leaders, this minister was not allowed to reclaim his position when several in the congregation pushed for him to be rehired.  What was particularly amazing about this story, however, was the way it focused almost exclusively on how members of the congregation “felt” about the issue.  They even quoted the practicing homosexual in a positive light when he shockingly admitted, “he has come to form his own theory about Christianity and homosexuality.”  

So here is an unrepentant sinner, proudly and boldly championing that sin, and outrageously proclaiming that he doesn’t really like Christianity as God defined it.  And yet according to the story, 80% of the congregation wanted to see him rehired!  If I was looking for a more obvious demonstration of how the modern church is more concerned with seeking our own feelings rather than seeking truth, I don’t know that I could find one. 

Moreover, we become completely consumed in the emotional side of our relationship with Christ.  We focus on how we feel, how our relationship with Jesus makes us feel, what we feel God is doing or not doing, how the service makes us feel, how comfortable we are with various aspects of the faith, whether we are being ‘fed’ by the sermons or the music or the fellowship.  Our focus on feelings puts ME at the center.  It feeds almost a constant state of discontent, displeasure, griping and dissatisfaction with elements of church that have nothing to do with Christianity.

Christianity is about truth.  Church should be about truth.  And the truth about truth is that it is cold – it doesn’t care about our feelings and it is not dependent upon our desires or preferences.  It exists whether we like it or not, and therefore the job of the church is to lead people to a submission to that truth.  Our focus should be consistently and unfailingly centered like a laser on what God’s Word says, how our relationship with Jesus changes us, what God has done, what God is doing, what God can do, and how we can be more obedient servants to His kingdom.  That focus puts God at the center.  And it feeds almost a constant state of contentment, joy, satisfaction, grateful praise and devoted discipleship…elements of church that have everything to do with true Christianity...