WHERE IS LOVE

We are reaping what we've sown. We've sown (or allowed to be sown) the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. I read a status on here this morning about a 21 year old invited to church who responded that he had NEVER been to church! For some of you this will be foreign. I know this because I live in the south where there is a church on every corner and everybody thinks they’re a “preacher!” There is a huge portion of our nation for which this is simply not true. I was speaking once in a large urban area in a church of another denomination than mine. After the THIRD service with over 2500 in attendance in back to back services (on that Sunday morning) I asked the pastor what kind of outreach they were using to have such a large crowd. He just looked at me and said “you don’t get it do you?” I looked at him and heard him say the following…”Jeff in this city we are the ONLY show in town! People don’t DO the church thing here like they do where YOU come from. They have no choice as to where to go to worship. Most of these folks don’t even belong to this denomination. They just have no choice! WE are IT!” He continued…”in this city we have an NFL team, an NBA team and every possible type of entertainment on a regular basis. I’m not some genius pastor; I just pastor where “some” people are really hungry for God and have very few options as to where to pursue that love!” WOW! That conversation never left me. Options; man we’ve got em don’t we! We have raised (or allowed to be raised) an entire generation of kids who don’t even know there was ever anything different than what we have today. Make no mistake about it we now have a nearly totally secularized society! Blaming the society would be like blaming the food for people being overweight. It’s not society’s fault. THEY are society and we are disingenuous when we blame the secular world for BEING the secular world. Our kids have watched US go to church, act disinterested, get mad when we didn’t get OUR way and if it went far enough we would go join or START another church. We did it and they saw it. We did it in the name of freedom…and “options.” But when our local (or favorite) sports team does something we don’t like we keep right on cheering, attending, believing and PAYING! Our favorite TV show may even get canceled but we don’t get rid of our television or boycott the network. That kind of quitting and splitting mentality is reserved for “church” and this generation has determined that “church” is just not important enough to care about. Maybe the Black Eyed Peas had it right when they asked…Where is the LOVE. God said to love HIM with all your heart. WE haven’t done that. Jesus said just before He began the journey to the cross “by THIS shall all men know you’re my disciples…if you have LOVE one for another.” Meanwhile city after city is built with very few if any churches or church influence and those that have them (churches) keep playing the silly games about “having it ‘our’ way or we’ll just take our ball and go start another one.” God bless the legitimate church “plants” out there but God HELP the splits for the sake of this “our way or the highway” mentality. So before you ask the question “where is the Church?”… Maybe we should ask and answer the Black Eyed Peas question…where is the LOVE? It’s not that we don’t have enough churches…it’s that we don’t have enough REAL Church!