Undoing what the church has done

Walking Third has been confronted with a very hard reality this month while staying in a country that is clinging to Communism.  This government is all about regulating, which the church has done to match.  Orthodox Christians here are the loosie-goosie type… what we could say extremely lukewarm back home but Baptist churches around here are all the same in that they operate here based on the idea of restrictions.  No dancing, no drinking (at all), no socializing with people who are not of the Baptist church.  We heard a true story of a pastor on the other side of the country who had a good friend who was part of the Orthodox church.  This man’s child was being baptized, but because he was Orthodox and the pastor headed a Baptist church, he was afraid to go because the Baptist union could have heard that he went and he would basically be run out of his church.  With unions in charge of the different denominations here, church sound more like a mafia family than a place where believers and lovers of Jesus can safely go to have fellowship.

One thing is consistent across all the denominations– they refer to everyone else as a “sect.”  If you’re not affiliated with a big church, you’re part of a sect.  I could go on for a loooong time about this.  Jesus did not teach a denomination or a religion, he said, “I tell you the truth.”  The crazy cool thing about a truth is that there is only one.  The truth is founded in what Jesus taught, which means we should build our houses on that foundation– not something that is added to His message or something that takes away from it. 

OK, that’s all I’ll say about that.

The whole point of this blog is to explain that all the rules, regulations, disagreements and persecutions between mafia churches is chasing away more people than it is attracting.  Youth, especially, want nothing to do with the church because it represents an impossible life to them.  This life looks more like the Old Covenant than the new one–more dominated by modern-day Pharisees than teachers of the message of Christ.  So who can really blame them for steering clear of “the church”?

Part of what we’ve done this month is help to organize youth nights for our contact’s church.  This church is not like the unionized churches who add to and take away from what Jesus gave to us.  This church teaches about the love story between God and His children.  Andrew (our contact) lives in the neighborhood he ministers to, so he knows where all the kids hang out at night and he knows who the troublemakers are.  He wants us to help him show these kids that a relationship with God doesn’t mean being part of “the church,” nor does it mean being in a “sect.”  It’s what’s in your heart and how you use your life to show appreciation for the reality of what Jesus did for us. 

Tonight, we had our second of four youth nights.  Our goal at the first one was simply to get people who normally don’t go near the building to just be inside a church.  We wanted them to see us in the sanctuary, relaxed and listening to contemporary Christian music (all kinds of music have a Christian side to them these days) to prove to them that it doesn’t have to be like what they’ve experienced in the past.  Tonight, we spent a little time telling stories and showing pictures from the places we’ve been before we got here.  Thursday, we’re hoping to be able to share some testimonies around a bonfire and Sunday, our last night here, we’ll get a chance to encourage them and say goodbye.