How Shall They Hear?

As I write this post many of you are getting ready to go to church. You are assembling all the essential things you need, including your Bible, (howbeit some are getting used to scriptures being viewed on screen and don’t take that as an essential) and you are going to Hear the Word for today! You have found what you believe is truth, but how did you come to this realization? The old church used to sing of “remembering it well – it was on a Sunday, mine was on a Monday, etc” – they remembered the day, they remembered the time – it was sealed in them “the day they found the Lord!’ Most of those remember also the mourners bench where they were seated until “that day they found the Lord!”

Now we “find the Lord” – without the mourners bench, sometimes we don’t even have to make that long walk down the aisle by ourselves to make our “confession of faith.” We quietly and calmly raise our hands to say that “we want to accept Christ as our Personal Savior” – that’s it – that settles it. Even when we desire the infilling of the Holy Ghost, we quietly and calmly pray to receive “it” and begin our jibber and just as calmly go back to our seats in faith believing we have done all we need to do to “make it in!”

I might sound a bit cynical, but I your full attention – the “emerging church” has emerged! We are caught in a cycle of demographics and market analysis that tell us how “to do” church. The problem is, that in the midst of trying to appeal to a contemporary audience, that audience leaves their Sunday morning experience, until the next time they can “experience church” – and for far too many the “blood” escapes them – the blood that was shed on Calvary’s cross for the remission of their sins; the blood that came from a lamb without spot or blemish that was offered up to a Holy God; the blood that washes away sins and makes us whiter than snow. If we have come to believe this – there was someone who told us. If others will come to know this – someone will have to tell them. We cannot keep the church experience in the church!

We look at our children lost in a world that has no shortage of arrows pointing them to pleasure and perversion – but how many arrows are pointing them to a rugged cross where they can be reconciled to the God who made them? Scripture cries out:

Romans 10:14 (KJV)
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

If we are going to save this generation, it begins with what we believe. We must stop experiencing church and start doing what the church was called to do. That same old gospel story, given by one who believes, still has power to change lives!

Kairos,

Maria