Generous About Worship

Yesterday morning I went to church with my brother and his family. It is a large church north of San Diego. Contemporary worship. Multicultural. Young and casual. Centered on preaching. It is just the type of church I would probably have been very comfortable with fifteen or twenty years ago. A basic bible message. An altar call. A series on Revelations. I found, though, that I was critical from the moment I walked in to the room. This is not a bad thing. Theological education trains you to look at the world with a critical eye, to ask questions, to discern meanings and implications of church and worship.

As I sat in worship, I prayed for a generous spirit. It helped a little. My brother struggles to believe in God and I am grateful he goes to church with his family at all. I don't want to discourage that. I thought of Paul's words regarding those who were preaching the gospel with impure motives. Paul believed that it was better for the word to be preached whatever the motives. God's word would be efficacious regardless of who delivered the message. The moment I thought those words I realized how arrogant they would have sounded. I cannot judge this pastor's heart. I cannot judge his motives.

I tried to look for the positives. I found several. While they emphasize saving souls and the end times, they also talked about going to Uganda for a service project. The pastor emphasized the need to meet physical needs so that people might be able to hear the message of the gospel. The pastor also talked a lot about suffering and while there was a tinge of health and wealth in the message, mostly he emphasized that suffering happens in this world. He did not blame the victims. He did not say that those who suffer are evil or sinful. He was miraculously healed from cancer, yet he did not assume that all faithful prayer heals. Others in his family died from the same cancer. He recognizes that suffering is present in all our lives.

Yet there were some things about the message that bothered me. The emphasis was on a pre-millenial view of eschatology. The pastor believed that all Christians would be raptured before the end times. So, he preached the horror and devestation of the end days and then repeatedly stated how grateful he was that he wouldn't be here when all that suffering occurred. His gospel message, at least for this weak, was accept Christ to escape the violence of the end times. Something seems twisted about that reasoning for two reasons.

First, it seems that if we believe the world will be going through incredible suffering, shouldn't we want to be present to minister to the people during those awful days? Can we abandon the earth when it needs us the most? Some would argue that it will be too late, that they had their chance. I disagree. Perhaps I love this world too much. I do think that is possible. There are times that I would rather be here than in heaven. I don't want the end of days to come. I want to see my nieces grow up. I want to fall in love and have a family. I want to grow old. I want more time for all of us to live and love and learn. But perhaps, if this love for the world is born out of less selfish motives, out of a concern for people, out of a desire to end suffering, it is a good thing. And it should not wait until the end of days.

Second, I don't think the desire to escape the destruction of the end times is exactly the right reason to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Back to my generous spirit for a moment... I was only at this church for a week and realize that this is not the whole gospel message as presented by the pastor. I only saw a small slice. Also, I must admit that very few of us come to faith for the right reasons. I wanted love. I'll admit it. I wasn't seeking forgiveness. I didn't know much about lordship. I wanted unconditional love from God. Yet, how does that initial decision shape our faith for the rest of our lives? Does it lay a foundation that determines what type of building our faith will become? It seems that those initial ideas about Christ can provide areas of strenght and weakness in our faith, areas where we understand the truth and areas of blindness.

In this case, in the classic liberal critique, salvation becomes simply fire insurance. The reason that is unappealing to me has more to do with the lack of understanding of who Christ is and the purpose of Christ's death and resurrection. There is so little about grace, truth, love, sin... As I write, I wonder how much my own decision was shaped by those ideas. Mine was just as selfish a decision. It was only later that I could understand more clearly who was loving me and what that might require of me in this world.

Perhaps it doesn't matter as much where our faith begins. Perhaps what matters most is where our faith develops after that... if it develops at all. If we view conversion as a decision, it is over and done with. If we view our decision as entering a relationship, then there is the opportunity for growth and change as we learn more and more about this Jesus we have come to believe in. Yet we must have discipline and courage in order for this growth and change to occur. We must allow God to be God, not exactly who we thought God would be when we began the relationship. We must not fear the parts of God we don't understand. We must not avoid the parts of God we don't like. But we must grow in this relationship. We must allow ourselves to be changed. And pastors and lay leaders in the church must model this to the congregations.