Allelon - Part 3

Based on our personalities, I think we often gravitate towards one major program that a church offers. Then “church” turns into that specific thing and we equate our church experience with the quality of that program. For some it is about education. So if the Sunday School program is not very good, they look for a place that their intellect can be challenged. For others, the focus of church is the preaching. So if the preaching is boring or not inspiring, they may look elsewhere for a better preacher. If the songs and instrumentation are not to your liking you will go to a church that does it your way. On and on we could go with program after program through the different aspects that make up church. But that is not church.

Don’t get me wrong – we should strive for excellence in programming. We should do things as well as we can because we are doing it for the Lord. But when programming takes precedence over people we are not doing church. Because the church is not about education, preaching, singing, tithing or the Lord's supper. It is about "one another". So when you get offended at something and decide to change churches or even worse, mount a subversive vendetta against that person or program, understand that is not a program or a building that you are hurting. It is a human being. It is a person. Because after all, the church is made up of one another.

And if we choose to isolate ourselves, this action doesn’t just hurt the church, it hurts you too. Why do we perpetuate a feeling of solitude by stopping the very thing that could provide a feeling of belonging? We get frustrated or feel slighted which breaks that unity and decide we will show them by not coming anymore. Then we miss out on the encouragement of the church and the church misses out on the encouragement we offer. To rephrase the quote from the Lost clip, “If the church is not one another, then we are all alone.”

God is calling the Church to so much more.
As more and more of us find it easy to become isolated;
As more and more of us seek to receive without any commitment;
As more and more of us view the church as focused on programming just for us;
God is calling the church to be focused on one another. To be a place of acceptance for all who walk through the doors. To be a place of encouragement in a world that tries so hard to beat us down. To be a place full of people who put one another’s needs first and our own needs second.

If the church is not about one another, then we will be all alone.