I have a problem with the modern day church. A huge problem, I hate this fake I can’t have anything wrong with me attitude that a lot of churches have these days. I am currently going through a sermon series by Matt Chandler, it’s on the book Ecclesiastes which is all about King Solomon and the things that he learned in his many days.
Solomon has had literally everything that you could ever want and more. He had parties seven days a week that had enough food to serve 15-20 THOUSAND people, he built national parks and forests, he also dug out huge pools to be able to store up water for these parks. Those pools are still there to this day. Everything that you have ever done or will do is nothing more than just a sad attempt to get close to what he has done.
Around chapter six and seven he begins to just lay out the things that he has learned through all of these years of chasing after the wind, and he calls it chasing the wind because no matter what he accomplished it was never enough, it just wasn’t good enough. This is the part in the book that gets to be a bit of a downer. He comes to several realizations that while they are sad they are true. He says that there is more to be learned in the house of mourning than in the house of laughter and joy. While that sounds morbid it’s so true. He says this because going to a house of mourning (a funeral) will cause a man to take an inventory of his life. It will cause him to look back and think about what he’s done and what kind of a mark he has left. It’s also saying that pain will bring growth. That’s a strange concept to a lot of people, a concept that most won’t even try out. But what does it mean, and what does it look like today? Exposing and accepting your own problems and the pain that comes with that is the beginning of moving past them.
This is what ushers in the huge problem that I see in most churches today. People are so afraid to admit that they are hurt and broken that they walk around church pretending that they are fine when in reality, using the metaphor that Chandler used, they are walking around in flames. Their problems have engulfed them and they are burning, or sometimes the flames have just died down and they have no hair, because it all burned up, one of their arms is all torched up. The burns are so visible and apparent yet they do nothing about it. Why is nobody running around screaming that they’re on fire? Why does everyone seem to sit there smug pointing at someone else and say “At least I’m not like that guy” when they’re covered in flames themselves. The fool sits while he is in flames and giggles, while the wise man runs around screaming that he is on fire asking for help. My main question is “Why does everybody seem to walk around covered in flames and do nothing about it until there is unbelievable amounts of damage?”
Chandler uses an example of a marriage, and instead of screaming fire when there are the first signs of smoke they do nothing and say nothing and just let the fire grow and spread. Only in the end having so much damage already done by the time they scream fire, that it requires so much work to try and salvage it. I guess I should redirect my problem away from the church and onto the people in the church and the mentality that the people have. Because there are so many places at the church to get help, whether it is a program like Celebrate Recovery, biblical counseling, or even just prayer. The church has solutions for these problems and I can’t honestly imagine a church turning away someone with a problem and not doing anything to help them. The problem isn’t the church, the problem is that people are just walking around engulfed in flames and doing nothing, asking no one for help.
