The job of a prophet is to speak the word of God. Here it is:
Love the Lord your God with all of your being.
Stop worshiping Baal.
Stop squandering what I [God] have giving you.
Love your freakin’ neighbor.
The list goes on, but these Truths are not just ancient wordplay, nor are they recent revelations. These are (badly paraphrased) words of God spoken through the prophets. The prophets were not always revered (or even tolerated) by the people, but they laid down the law on behalf of God. Let me tell you a couple of things:
We live in a world which has forgotten what it is like to invite God to dwell with us. We go to church once a week, perhaps, but we don’t know how to live out our faith anymore. Mostly this comes about because our church leaders no longer model faithful living. Pastors want to have a nice car, house, pension, etc. so how in the hell can pastors expect others to drop their nets and follow them when they still have their net grasped in their hand? We forget what it is to be inspired and instead fill our pulpits with mediocrity.
Laity in the church must claim their ministry. Our laity must go out doing the work of the poor at the danger of losing life and limb. We want to insulate ourselves from harm or death and our churches worry about lawsuits. The truth is that our ministry into the world can not be without risk. The early Christians risked death by meeting together. When was the last time you risked death by going to church? We must be fully committed to embodying our faith.
God is calling us to an authentic faith. God wants us to drop our selfish ambition and greed to follow the life of Christ. That can not be accomplished once a week nor is it accomplished in church council or slick advertising. Our churches need to grow, but not in numbers. Our churches (and their pastors) much first grow in spirit and commitment. Let our churches speak loudly and with relevance to a broken world. Let us proclaim the truth, even when it is hard to hear.
Our churches must begin to model stewardship. Forget these ridiculous buildings and projection systems and fancy coffee/bookshops in our churches. Let start with basic Biblical literacy and interpretation and if we can learn to do that – let’s take our resources and begin to change the world (not our foyers). What??? You think that it takes a nice looking building and fancy equipment to have lots of people? Our churches don’t need a lot of uncommitted people, we need to model a committed faith that uses resources to change lives not to build a bigger freakin’ budget.
Our churches must strive to help our communities and the people in them to be transformed physically, emotionally and spiritually. We might pretend to do mission in a sterile and safe way with part of our ‘budget’, but that just isn’t good enough for God. God said it best of all “Love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself”. God didn’t say just love your neighbor with the scraps that are leftover. God said to love your neighbor AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF. This isn’t easy, but if we begin to live more simply we can also begin to simply provide for those around us.
It is time for change. Let’s not take baby steps. Let’s not downplay the significance of our sin. Let’s not molest the Bible until it makes us feel justified in our lifestyle. Instead – Let’s start a spiritual transformation in the church.
Try it. I don’t want to have to pull out my sword and get all “Old Testament” on you. (see Exodus 32)