high highs low lows

been thinking about the world impact tour coming to Dayton in 2008...what a challenge to knit together a leadership team and enlist participation from hundreds of different church backgrounds, races, and traditions.

I'm not sure that we'll make it...sometimes in my low lows...i see the flaws, the distance between the churched and non churched that is reflected by the inwardness of most churches.

The language, the dress, the selfishness, the traditions... church is about meeting my needs, i want to get my praise on, i want deeper teaching, i don't want to serve, i want to be served, i don't want to give, i want to be given to, i want to be cared for, i don't want to care...and they out there are the enemy...

Also, most meetings are geared toward believers... A couple of years ago i worked with some churches that were so entrenched in their church culture they couldn't understand serving others with no strings, or understand why unchurched people wouldn't flock to their building for revival meetings...heaven forbid if someone did venture in wearing shorts, or jeans.

A few years a go i also went to speak at a major denomination gathering in PA to attempt to help the leaders to focus out...it was painful, heart breakingly so...Even though the message and concepts were well received...I sensed it was too little, too late...no young pastors, and no young people in their midst...they were in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs, becoming extinct...yet, they continued to do business as usual.

One major church leader recently told the story of his movement toward faith...he was turned off by what he observed, the unspoken dress codes, the ancient hymns, the guilt driven speakers, ... he became a believer through listening to a
Christian comedian... sadly, he has become the very thing he resisted during his journey...he became churched...what's even sadder is that he doesn't know it.

I do hope the church of Dayton embraces the diversity of believers, and lay aside their churchiness in order to reach out to those who need Jesus...on my high high days i'm hopeful...but on my low lows....sigh...