The Number One Sin of the Church?

Joe MacKever

Google that--the number one sin of the church--and almost all the responses will be the same: Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle telling Mark Buchanan the church's leaders are not on their knees crying out to God for the outcasts of this world--the prostitutes, the gang leaders, the druggies.

Included among all the Cymbala citations, I found only two other mentions of the church's primary sin.

Scott Peck said the number one sin of the church is its arrogance and narcissim, the attitude that we have God all sewn up, that all truth resides with us.

Another pastor said it is "tolerance to the point of obsequious stupidity." I looked up "obsequious." It means "fawning," a "servile attitude," "sycophantic."

Each of those makes a great point. But here is my candidate for the primary failure of the church in our day.

The greatest sin of the church today is that it does not take itself seriously enough.

By that I mean, it does not take its Lord, its message, its identity, and its role seriously.

Go into almost any city in the land and drop in on church after church. You will find some great congregations and hear the occasional excellent sermons, to be sure. However, again and again, you will walk away shaking your head, convinced that instead of visiting the power center of the planet, ground zero for the actions of Almighty God, you have just sat in on something akin to a family reunion, a civic meeting, or a community improvement session.

A weak sister of the Oprah self-improvement society.

Instead of a sense of urgency, you saw half-heartedness on every side.

Instead of prayers that reached Heaven with earth's needs, you heard sweet, harmless platitudes addressed to a friendly but impersonal Lord off out there somewhere.

Instead of enthusiasm and sacrifice in the bringing and giving of offerings, you saw a robotic, mindless dropping of envelopes into plates hoisted by zombie ushers.

Instead of messages of fire and passion, you heard and saw something incredible: teachings of God's Holy Word made dry and lifeless, congregations of the redeemed lulled into lethargy by uninspired dronings, readings of the great prophets rendered toothless and boring.

It takes real skill to turn the most exciting message in the universe--the Creator so loved the people of this planet that He sent His Son to becomes the Savior of all who will repent and turn to Him--into something more boring than a 30-minute infomercial for real estate bargains.

Toward the end of the services, instead of urgent invitations to repent and turn from wicked ways, you saw pastors tack on the public invitation with hardly a word of explanation or a note of concern. When no one responded to their altar call, if anyone cared there was no evidence.

The number one sin of the church today is its casualness about the things of God.

The eighth century prophet Amos put it well: "Woe to those who are at ease in Zion." (Amos 6:1)

That's us: at ease.

The Lord God has situated His church in this world as its greatest resource, as His agent in the redemption of this planet and its inhabitants, as His children, His priests, His arms, His hands. We are His beachhead, sent into a hostile culture to take it for Jesus.

To our everlasting shame, even those of us called to be its leaders give only half-hearted service.