I don't need the church to be a good Christian...

        Ever heard anyone make this comment? If I had a nickel for every time I had, I could almost retire from ministry! The problem with this comment is that it flies into the face of what Jesus lived and taught us through us life and death! If there's anything Jesus taught us about living the Christian life, it's the fact that Christianity is about relationships, not individualism. The reason so many Christians ARE failing in their Christian walk is because they're trying to do it by themselves! Many Americans have integrated our Western culture of self-sufficiency and individualism with Christianity, and it has led us to give up on the church and His people!
        Hey, I know we've all been let down by a Christian, sometime, somewhere. If you have, welcome to the party! rest assured, you've let lots of people down, too! Does that mean God is through using you? No! Do a few failures in the past mean God is through with the church? Heavens, NO!!! God is as ready, wiling, and able as ever to work in our lives TOGETHER in His church to bring all of HIS spiritual synergy into action to radically transform our lives and the lives of others. Christianity is not about you. It's not about me. It's about  "Wii". So let's stop whining about our failures. Let's stop whining about the church's failures. Do you know what a real team does when it realizes it's behind? They pick each other up off the bench; slap each other on the butt (wouldn't that be interesting if we incorporated this into our worship services)and say: "Hey, let's go, we can do this, if we stick together and start playing as a team!" All of this is what we're going to start talking about this weekend in our new message series called WOW Wii. Don't miss it!

Comments

[Josh Silva]

Great post you nailed that one

[Jeremy Myers]

When I hear people say this, I try to probe a bit further to see what they mean, and it turns out that when they think of "church" they think of the institutionalized, building/program-centered "church." I try to affirm them in recognizing that they don't need these things to be a good Christian, but then show them that they do need the things like accountability, relationships, fellowship, etc.

[Scott]

It's funny... we all think we can do it alone, but even Jesus had others.

A friend of mine likes to say, "If you don't have a solution, don't whine."