Our American Churches...

Yeah, I just wonder sometimes, in our American churches, if we don't really impact the lost, cuz we aren't really all that changed. We've become like the world, even though we're not of it. It's so hard to give away what we don't seem to have. The Jesus we now teach, doesn't have the power to convict us anymore & Tolerance, of anything & everything, has become the new norm. Political correctness has taken over our pulpits & the gospel has become the language of hate. We're so careful not to offend people, that we've pushed the Holy Spirit out the back doors of our churches, & we just proceed as usual, unaware that God has left the building. It's no longer God's time or God's agenda... It's become ours. And, because were so content to have church without God in the room, we live a powerless, compromising, ineffective life, offering the world absolutely, nothing. We love, no, we demand, to be entertained in our churches, & we'd rather be wowed than changed. People walk into our 'churches' broken, abused, lonely, discouraged, hopeless, unloved, rejected, ashamed, betrayed, walked all over, thrown out with the trash, buried beneath the unthinkable, so strung out they don't know their own name, dying, lost... And we, so as not to offend, or end up on the nightly news, offer them cool music, amazing light shows, lots of entertainment, a watered down, insignificant message, that most of us don't believe anyway, and oh yeah, a cup of coffee from our lovely, & trendy, cafe. We keep it short so they come back, & above all else, we make sure to be relevant to them, but, not, never, ever to God (cuz He understands) . We want them to like us, so we give em what the world, says they want, & we refuse to give em what they need. We meet them with our fake smiles, awkward hugs, & insincere concern, & just send them back out into their world, empty handed, unchanged, & just as lost as they were when they walked in. We want them to know our church name & 'come help us grow', but we refuse to speak ANY Truth in love, so they won't leave & go somewhere else. We need them to like us, so we compromise... Everything. They should have encountered God here, but we hid Him. They should have gotten radically saved here, but we denied them. They should have been made completely whole, here, but we refused them. They should have met God...Here, but, sadly, we pretended we didn't even know Him. So much we could have, should have, done, but we just didn't. Sometimes, you only get one chance to save somebody's life, but, sadly, we're willing to risk it. We are Christian, but we are not making much difference. We should have offered them hope. We should have offered them love. We should have offered them answers. We should have offered them anything, something, that matters. We should have offered them JESUS, but we're too busy building our own Kingdom, and ignorantly, diminishing His. We should have been their turning point. Instead we were their Sunday morning stop. It should have been a life altering moment , but, instead, we barely scratched the surface. We should have let them meet our Jesus, but... We just didn't. The GOSPEL is the power of God. It's the ONLY thing that will transform a life. Coffee calms, music entertains, but ONLY JESUS SAVES. If He's not in the room, how will they meet Him? I wonder sometimes, if we aren't running out & saving the lost, if we aren't impacting the lost, if we aren't forever changing the lost, cuz well, some of us have been just 'doing church' for way too long, & God left the building a long time ago, & now, well, some of us are still so, entirely, & completely, lost ourselves, we don't know where to begin.We, our clubs, our churches, our personalities, our swag, our coolness, our social status, our church attendance, our amazing band, our breathtaking light shows, the 'names' that attend our church, the numbers we boast about, being the best church in town, our contemporary buildings, the circles we brag that we hang in, our own self importance, & bragging, self promotion, will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, do what ONLY JESUS can do. I WISH, oh how I wish, we knew that in some of our irrelevant, but entertaining, American churches...