Dying on the Inside...

Today we took dad to a funeral home. As he is settling on the idea that he will be with us in our home until his level of care increases surpassing what we are capable of handling, he has made a list of things he wants to accomplish - things such as pre-planning for his funeral and owning a Harley! Pre-planning for his funeral is just wisdom so we can now mark that off the list. I have a feeling, however, owning a Harley will remain, but we shall see.

On the way to the funeral home we listened to the message of a pastor on one of the local radio stations. He was talking about many things but began talking how people were dying outside the walls of the church he leads. Most Christians, I believe, would agree with that statement but I have to be honest in saying it somewhat grated on my ears and sounded a bit on the arrogant side to me.

I have always had a tendency to view things from the perspective of the non-believer, perhaps to a hyper-sensitive degree. When I hear Christians speak, especially when they have a large audience platform, I don't often sit restfully soaking every word in, I usually sit filtering words through what I can only assume to be the non-believers perspective. What does that sound like? How palatable was the message? Does the message have the capacity to reach all people regardless of where they are on their journey? What Truth was delivered and was it clearly understandable? I hear inflections in the voice of the deliverer, I see body language if I am viewing the message. I can't help it - I am (to use an overused church phrase) "seeker sensitive."

I am desperately hopeful and prayerful that those I have the opportunity of meeting in my life will have and know true freedom in Christ but unfortunately, I feel we as Christ-followers, sometimes more often than not, fail to represent Him with the fullness of who He is. It doesn't take many turns of the newspaper to find where we have done a really poor job of misrepresenting Him. It doesn't take many conversations in meeting individuals who have been hurt by the church, sometimes by leadership, sometimes by legalism, sometimes through lack of love expressed or some other unfortunate experience. Our humanity, at times, in its most fallible form, rears its head and we find ourselves not attracting non-believers to Him but rather pushing them farther from Him.

Don Everetts affirms this notion in his book, I Once Was Lost. Don writes, "In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the norm... when our friends hear us call ourselves "Christian," several negative things often immediately flash through their minds: "Christians are self-righteous, and they always think they're better than me." "I'm about to get judged, so I better get my defenses up." "Christians are naive and narrow-minded, and they believe in fairy tales"." We seem to be failing Him by misrepresenting Him.

The main reason the statement made by this pastor bothered me is that I have been in church my whole life and from my experience, people aren't just dying on the outside of the church, they are dying on the inside as well. Ruth Graham, the daughter of Billy Graham, wrote the book In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart. One of the most disheartening confessions she makes in the book is this... "I know what it's like to sit in the pew with a broken heart. For years I sat in church with my fears, doubts, and disappointments, thinking I was alone in my condition. Those around me seemed to have it all together. They looked so "spiritual." Did they not struggle as I did? Was I the only one whose dreams had fallen to pieces? Was I the only one who had blown it? Was I the only one depressed and feeling beyond hope? To protect myself and to fit in, I masked my shortcomings and dared not whisper my failures. I worked hard to create the impression that my life was neat and orderly. I knew the posture and language well - and I carried it off."

Jesus says to the church in Laodicea, "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." The church Jesus is speaking to is a church that is "doing church" without Him. He is standing on the outside of the church knocking suggesting they invite Him in. Because they are so busy "doing church", they don't realize the position of the One for whose name they gather in. The church of Laodicea was dying on the inside. The unfortunate truth is our church of today is not so different than the church of the first century. We sometimes know the posture and language so well that we fail to recognize the position of our Saviour. Are we inviting Him in or are we fine doing church our way? Are we attracting the non-believer or by our very words and actions/in-actions pushing them further from Him?

It doesn't take much to notice the world is declining rapidly and we are in a time where we must be more open and available to others seeking "something better". But first we must do as Jesus instructs in Revelation 3:19, be earnest and repent. As much as we look outward to the condition of the world around us, we must stop long enough to be earnest and repent... seek the condition of our own heart and recognize we have individuals dying on the inside of our church walls too. No position, no posture is exempt.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Revelation 3:22