SERIES

Missing: Worship
Jon Oletzke | January 30th, 2011

What happens when worship is missing from the church?

Missing: The Bible
Ryan Oletzke | January 23rd, 2011

What happens when God's word is missing from the church?

Missing: Serving
Jon Oletzke | January 16th, 2011

For most Christians, the local church is usually regarded as nothing more than a personally helpful but basically benign reality.  Oh, sure, we honor the Church the way we honor our Mother’s on Mother’s Day or Veteran’s on Veteran’s day—because we have some genuine affection and mostly because we think it is the right thing to do.  The more traditional of us, may even use exalted language in declaring it a "means of grace."  But most often we think of the Church as nothing more than an optional "strategy" or a "system" for local evangelistic efforts, social change, or a dispenser of resources to help the individual on his or her Christian journey.  Churches are offered like different shops are offered at a mall. Indeed, the largest churches offer themselves as a kind of spiritual mall in itself, bidding the seeker: Come here and choose from our wide array of Christian classes, teachings, activities, that which you need to live out your individual Christian life. In this model the church is a repository of spiritual goods that assist the individual Christian. It is a vendor of religious services.  It is The Home Depot for the spiritual do-it-yourselfer who wants to build a Christian home. But that is not the Church of the first century.  The Church of the first century is “a people.”  And the transformed and transforming quality of “the people” serving… as the flesh and blood witness to a life-transforming God is the point.


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