Church Is Scary!

I had a great conversation today with a person in our church who brought several visitors last week. I just have to say, if you don't invite people to church, church is BORING!!! To break the boredom most Christians choose to get critical and kill each other. If we took all our critical, judgemental and bitter energy at church and directed it to winning lost friends to Jesus what would happen? Instead of hundreds of church splits we would have hundreds of church plants!

Well, here is what got me going. As they drove into the parking lot one of the kids she brought said, "Church is scary." Her son (7 years old) replied, "No this is really fun and cool." Then he went on to tell the boy why he believed in God. The mother was absolutely amazed at her son. I am so excited for this family that is growing in the Lord. The mother was baptized this summer and is growing in God.

Here is the dark side of the story. We live in a world where many children and young people think that church is scary. I heard a young woman in her 20's say, "Pastors are creepy." We have such an image problem in the church. We try so hard to have an image of piety that we end up with an image of "scary" and "creepy." I think that one of the strengths of our church right now is that we are real. Sometimes reality hurts, but it is better to hurt for a while and let God heal our hearts, than to fake wellness and really stay sick!

Let's be real. Let's be loving. Let's help the world see Jesus Christ in us without becoming some kind of creepy church hermit. Let's be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, but let's not become spooky. Spooky is when we allow the attention to be on us rather than the Lord. Keep it simple. Keep it loving. Keep it real.