When we gather as the Church looking to be entertained, we miss out on the immeasurable glory that Jesus wants us to witness. Rather than looking to be entertained, we should be looking to encounter God.
Don’t waste Church.
Church isn’t what we make of it. Jesus said, “I will build my Church…” (Matt 16:18).
What the Holy Spirit does, we cannot duplicate.
What the Holy Spirit does, we cannot do without Him.
When we gather, we might be looking for something God doesn’t want to show us and as a result we may just miss the immeasurable glory of what Jesus intends for His Church.
What Are We Really Seeking?
What are we looking for? I would have to say we look for in Church what we spend the rest of the week looking for: Entertainment. Satisfaction for the craving in our souls. I feel this way because we apply the same critiquing principles to Church as we do the overlords of our attention: Social Media. Then we come to the Church gathering and we’re left empty because we seek of Church what we seek of Social Media.
It’s no wonder that so many Gen Z and Millenials have opted out of the Church because perhaps we’re not finding what we’re looking for and we’re disappointed with the Church because we’re looking for the wrong thing. I don’t know God if I think Church should be more entertaining than my favorite YouTuber or Tik Tok creator (I don’t use Tik Tok but I’m blown away with how it has captivated the attention of users and how many hours a day it can consume).
God doesn’t want to out entertain your Social Media favorites; He shouldn’t have too.
If we really knew Him. If we opened up the platform which He inspired, the most wonder-inducing revelation, the greatest life-directing truths, the greatest story ever told, the providential creation of One eternal being, the Word of God…we’d be reminded that life isn’t about our pleasure being satisfied, it’s about His glory being realized. It’s only in the realization, in the beholding, in the fear that we are satisfied. There’s no room for anything less than God’s glory. That’s what we were created for.
Perhaps we need to be “renewed in the spirit of [our] minds” (Ephesians 4:23) because what we’ve been created to crave and seek is so entirely off the rails of what God actually intends for His creation to experience.
C.S. Lewis, the twentieth century author and lay-theologian, writes of this missed glory:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis).
The first time I read, “We are far too easily pleased,” I was convicted to the bone. I still am. It’s a punch in the gut because it’s true. Even if a momententary pleasure is escaped, another one can take its place. In an effort to avoid a ramble I’ll say this: Your greatest pleasure is slipping away at the hands of transitory garbage. We’ve been fooled (Eph 4:14)! Although we think more consumption equals increasing satisfaction, it’s actually increasing emptiness which arouses our impulse to consume.
It’s my cyclical mistake to think on my day off that rest looks like watching the YouTube videos and Netflix movies which I haven’t had time for. How tricked I am. What a waste of time! I’m more tired, filled with more anxiety, and numb in the mind.
So at Church, both of us—the “producers” (i.e. church staff, worship team, preaching, etc.) and “consumers” (i.e. church members, worshippers)—we have this entertainment mentality and we leave wanting bigger, wanting better.
It’s not a bad thing to produce or experience worship which out sees or raises the world’s wager on attention, but if that’s our goal… if we think that’s evangelism, if we think that’s Church, we’ve missed it. I think I’m a content creator, I think the Church should be pleasing my senses.
I read a blog post recently where the author was speaking of how trying to be culturally relevant, the Church can become something it’s not intended to be:
“Trying to be culturally relevant is turning the church into followers instead of leaders. A relevant church may be following slightly ahead of others, but we’re still following. And it often makes our churches look too much the same in ways we ought to be different – from each other and the culture” (Karl Vaters, The End Of Relevant Church And The Rise Of Contextual Ministry).
When our eyes are looking side-to-side to understand what Church is, we miss the fact that “from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36).
Witness Glory
“And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11).
Solomon had just finished leading the building of the Temple. The priests then brought the ark of the covenant which contained the two tablets which Moses received from God into the Most Holy Place. Then a cloud filled the whole Temple (this is no fog machine) and everyone had to get out of the building because the glory of God was being unleashed.
The people had a hand in the preparations, but God was the one who made something happen that the people would never forget. He made His glory fill the Temple so they couldn’t even stay inside! How many times do we wish service would end already so we can get back to something else? Or how many times have we experienced a worship night we didn’t want to leave? Have any of us experienced a gathering where we were forced to exit the building because the glory of God was so intense we would die if we stayed?!
We may have a hand in the preparation; God uses us for that privilege. But we don’t create an atmosphere that makes people happy they came and want to come back. God’s glory is what knocks people out of their boots with unexpected power!
That building, the first Temple, was eventually destroyed when the Israelites were taken into exile for their idolatry. Devastating but a building is a building. That’s not what makes God so awesome. In Ezra, then, we read about the rebuilding of the Temple when the Israelites were allowed to come back to where Jerusalem once stood. And we’d think that when they built it again, the same thing we read in 1 Kings would happen, right?
“All the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping” (Ezra 3:11-13, italics added).
What happened? Their Temple was built again, aren’t they happy? So many people are praising God because this is what they’ve waited so many long years in exile for, but for the older members of the congregation it’s not the same, why? What’s missing?…
The glory of the Lord.
Social media’s tainting of the Church’s expectations aside, we can be far too complacent with a building that is void of the Glory of God!
Do we weep that Church is not like that first Temple? Are we surprised that when we go to the place where every believer is filled that same Spirit which filled the first Temple and we don’t experience that intense presence causing fear within us?
I’m not writing all this to say I have the answers or that I’ve got it all figured out. Having recently become a pastor, this is what God has been burdening me for. When we gather, what should we actually come looking for and expecting? Not gratification of my entertainment crave, but the glorification of God being witnessed and worshipped! We have a hand in the preparation, but it’s only to give space for God to do His unmatchable work in the whole being of each person prepared for what He’s going to do.
That Temple is us now. Both as individuals (1 Cor. 6:19) and as a corporate Body (1 Cor. 3:16). We are living stones (1 Peter 2:5) being built together as a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:22). This is the reality but are we aware of this fundamental, urgent and paramount truth about the Church.
Again, I don’t have the answers to how we reconcile this epidemic attitude within our gatherings. The Bible does. Jesus—the Word of God—spelled it out for us. In a conversation with my small group a few months back, we concluded that it has to start in our own minds and hearts.
When you go to the gathering on Sunday or any other time Spirit-indwelt believers gather, what do you come looking for?
What are you expecting?
Do you understand what you’re walking into?
While others are seeking what their souls mistakenly crave and so miss what God actually wants to show us, what are you going to find when you’ve been “renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23)?
I encourage you to open God’s revelation. Read the Book of Acts. Read what Paul and Peter and others wrote about what truly is expected when God’s people gather. I pray for you, as I continue to pray for my own mind, that when you’re with the Church gathering, you leave less empty because of faulty expectations and more inspired for others to witness what you do!
Don’t waste Church. Witness glory.
Author:
Hey, everybody! My name is Alex! I have a growing passion for the Scriptures, being changed by them as they fill my mind and heart. Through teaching and preaching, I desire to help other believers know the abounding richness of the Scriptures for themselves. Read more of my writing here.
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