Dave Libby Writes about the C hurch, OUCH

Dave Libby is a pastor (Wheaton) friend of mine for several years.  We don't see each other very often but he's always good at cutting thru the theological crap and telling it as it is.  He did so in an email I got this morning.  This is not for the faint of heart. Read it only if you have courage.

 

Before the USA was established pre-1776 – Churches were tax funded entities and ministers were supported by the taxes of the gov't – and commissioned to be a moral guide and educator for the colonies.

 When the revolution hit – the British gov't pulled the funds to many of these congregations leaving them to figure out how to support the church service.  The invention that was created was pew rent, a yearly purchase of the pews for the privileged of being taught by the minister who was funded by the British government (the pre-curser to our tuition system of collegiate education).  Congregations managed the poor by some of the wealthier in the parish purchasing pews on their behalf.  However, with the advance of education (Sunday school was established to literally teach kids how to read and write), the effective need for the Sunday service started to diminish.  

About 100 years ago, with service decline on the rise, some reformers suggested to make the services free of admission or pew rent.  This was embraced over time and then the offerings slid more and more to support the services as a result.  The down side was that the losers in the equation were the poor and the real missionaries or apostles (meaning those who go out to "become all things to all men"). 

As the concept of giving slid into just support for the services of the congregation, indulgence became as masquerade for the body of Christ and this is the condition we find ourselves in today.  On the other side society could not tolerate a totally blind eye to the poor and so it gave the track for the government programs to be established to at least provide some sense of societal response to the issues that emerged over the last 100 years.  People sometimes lament saying 100 years ago the church was care taker of the welfare, and seem to suggest that if we would just go back to the good old days… 

 However, what we fail to realize is that is has been the slide from the body of Christ into our own version of selfish indulgence and a kind of social club environment (the Pentecostals as excited a group as they are – are definitely club typed) that have made the body of Christ so impotent in getting in the game. 

Ministers are today set up to be essentially appeasers of congregations of like people who come to them by being sold the product of their preaching or ideology and the children's ministry.  This is particularly targeted towards the "women folk" who like to have the stability of a perceived better spiritual head than their husband that that pastor represents and the opportunity to have a break from their children for the 2 hours on Sunday so they can get "fed".  The result of this kind of almost seductive paradigm is that the Christian divorce rate is passing that of the world.

Consider: 

600 million people in the world today are undernourished.

1.2 billion are overweight

300 million are obese

 Poverty gets played as a means to get money through the vehicle of offerings, but the churches don't really utilize it for this, instead they use the offerings on services simply for themselves.  We make "church growth" the objective which means getting more people in to give more money to the ministries which means more of a need to create more services to appease the clientele.

The most devastating part is the condition of the women who are being overwhelmed with the expectations all around them and the need to keep up, and this is dramatically impacting marriages and the very things that hold us together.

Dave's indictment is worth considering.  Can we change it?  I don't know.  I will do what I can.  So will Dave.  Maybe after we are both gone and in heaven with Jesus some radical reform will bring the Church in America back to it's purpose.  That is if Man and Denominations can stay out of the way.