Observation 1 - The American church

In A. W. Toser’s book, “The Knowledge of the Holy” he writes, “Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way.” I think this is one of the best descriptions of the way so many Christians live today. But this can’t be the way God has intended for us to live. I believe God intends for us to have more certainty in our lives than what there currently is. My question has been why is it this way? I think there are several things that contribute to the overall end result of today’s Christian mindset, and the decline in the effectiveness of the church overall in the last one hundred years. There is little doubt that the church in America is becoming more and more ineffective in both brining new people to the Lord, and aiding in building up believers with strong character. I see the church in America today as a collective group of people, who all have thousands of different views of God, and what His word says and means. They are always sub dividing into yet another group or denomination as they take God’s word and interpret it to mean something different than what all the other current denominations already believe. We do not see the church as one collective group with the same beliefs around the world, rather we see there is always some new variation of beliefs that claim they have the correct mix of interpretation and beliefs. Today there are thousands of different denominations of Christianity when it should just be one.

No self-awareness

One of the problems I see with the church today is its inability to have any self-awareness of either itself as a whole, or as individuals themselves. For the last one hundred years or more, the Christian church in America has become unaware of itself and its own behaviors and faults. It also seems to have no care at all to do anything about itself because it can’t see that there is even anything wrong to begin with. I believe that this is true mostly because neither one person or collective group really cares about God or his church like He does, as the erosion of the church does not directly effect the believer themselves, so they do not recognize the need for any change. If you owned your own business, and you were losing customers, and thus losing money, you would see and feel that directly. It would produce anxiety when you are not able to pay your mortgage and bills. You would begin to automatically think how you can make changes to your business to bring in more sales. But if you are an employee of a large corporation, and their stocks are losing value, you are not really going to be concerned because it does not affect your paycheck directly. So it is with the church, we seen it as God’s business and not ours, and we are not really too concerned with how the church is perceived by the rest of the world, because it does not directly affect us at all.

Defending God’s existence

The personality of the church is made up of the collection of all of the individual personalities that belong to it. It is a reflection of all of those who belong to the church. I believe one factor that contributes to the church failing to have self-awareness is that the church is seen as one that never wants to admit there is anything wrong with it. I think this comes from having so many people who belong to the church who they themselves do not want to admit they have anything wrong with them. I feel the church has become completely left brain orientated. It is more about facts and trivia from the bible than emotions and feelings. It is more concerned with gathering knowledge of God’s word than it is loving anyone. I think it all stems from the feeling that a Christian seems to develop early on that if there is any perceived flaw in our believes in God, then it stands to reason automatically that God does not exist. So many Christians seem to feel that they must have every answer to anyone who questions God and his existence. It comes from this fear of looking foolish, that you believe in something that you can’t actually give a good response to. That God’s existence somehow depends on us to be able to answer every single threat or question posed to us about God. We can’t just let our faith be enough and say to others, “well, I understand your question, but I do not really have an answer for you. I just know that I believe in my heart based on what I have seen and experienced with God directly.” We are not comfortable with not being able to answer everything, as we see it as a direct threat to both our faith and beliefs, and a direct threat to God’s very existence. Let me tell you that you no longer have to ever try to defend God, you only have to give an account for what you believe, and that is it. That does not at all mean that you have to prove Gods’ existence to everyone who questions you about it. That is for God to do, not us. Romans 1:20 says, ”For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” God has already proven His existence long before man even walked the earth.