Imagine you walked into a restaurant and ordered a steak. Twenty minutes later, the waiter comes back and puts a plate of spaghetti in front of you, claiming it’s the best spaghetti you’ll ever try. Would you be happy about it? No, you would send it back because it wasn’t what you ordered. It wasn’t even close!
I feel like this is what we have done with the Church. God gave us His “order” for the Church. He told us precisely what He wanted through His commandments in the Bible. In our arrogance, we created something we think works better. Rather than diligently studying His commands and delivering exactly what He asked for, we have been influenced by so many other things. We think about what we want, what others want, what others are doing. In the spirit of Cain, we bring an offering we think He should accept rather than what He actually asked for.
Francis Chan, Letters to the Church.
I encourage you to read Francis Chan’s book cited above and on my Resources page. The book is an honest account of his life and his struggles overseeing a large and “successful” conventional church. He eventually walked away and is now serving steak to those who are hungry for it.
For me, I grew up in church and have been a part of church and ministry all my life. As part of leadership we would discuss how we could do things better, attract more people, get the worship team to be tight, which refreshments to serve in the lobby, how to raise funds to build bigger or buy better equipment, invite special guests to speak, develop small groups, etc. etc. etc. It became a never ending amount of small tweaks to make the spaghetti taste and look more like steak. It is never enough, you can never turn spaghetti into steak!
When we bring an offering that is acceptable to God, He rejoices and we rejoice. There is a joy and peace I experience now that I have never experienced while I was trying to do church the conventional way. I have solid relationships with my spiritual family and my relationship with My Father has been really sweet. I challenge you to get involved in a more relational church and if there is not one around please contact me and we can walk you through starting one. You don’t have to be a master chef to serve a good steak!