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here is a method in what I do.
I grew up in the Church, and this Church is not designed
to be another one of the normal ones. When I came to
town 10 years ago I said if you want just another church
to attend, walk down any street—won’t take you many
blocks to find one. I’ve also said over these last 10
years you can have a new Pastor next Sunday. Just go to
another church. It’s always interesting for me to
watch, particularly as we move downtown, because the ads
and other things have brought people who come curiously
and they hear Great Balls of Fire.
You see, I’ve watched people for years in the
traditional Church use Sunday for some emotional
catharsis in neurotic behavior that if they did it on
the street, they’d be committed. I’ve watched them
because their theology has so abnormalized them that
they can’t participate in any of the joyful things of
life. The Church service becomes a banana-boat
catharsis moment when in the name of worshiping God,
they just go on an emotional binge. And most of their
energy is dissipated at some wailing altar experience
until having done that, they go right back to their
abnormal sub-spiritual behavior the rest of their week.
Churches create little monasteries with so-called
‘women’s missionary societies’ that are designed to cut
personalities through gossip more than cut-up cloth to
make quilts for missionary kids. And the big event of
the week in one of my churches was when they had the
young people’s group meetings so they could do such
exotic things as play Spin the Bottle. |
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Supernatural means ‘more natural.’ Christianity doesn’t
make a freak out of you. You don’t have to float 40
feet off the ground, as I often say, to be spiritual.
Christians ought to be the salt that preserves this
earth. And this is a university classroom that meets
once a week, not because you’re gonna be any better
Christian by the fact you move your body down here. You
can go to heaven and never go inside a church. About
time some Pastor tells you that—you don’t have to go to
church to be a Christian. The Church is a people that
belong to the Lord who go to the Lord’s House—simply
claim the promise “Where two or three are gathered
together in His name He is in the midst” and the most
meaningful thing that that Spirit of God in our midst
can accomplish is quicken the Word of God to our hearts
until there’s sight to see light and quicken the speaker
until he unveils God’s Word, the result of which will be
the coming of Faith for “Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God.”
Church services are not to be encapsulated freak
societies with their own little dirges being played and,
once you move out, never will what you do on Sunday
anywhere approach what you face through the week. And
there’s probably as much bad theology in some of the
dumb songs that are sung in Church—and they’ve done more
to warp the minds of Christians than all the rock n’
roll in the world: “Hold the fort for I am coming; wave
the answer back to heaven. By thy grace we will.”
Horse spit!
Jesus said “I’ll build my church and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.” Don’t give me one of
those ‘dig-in-brethren and hope-for-survival’ songs.
The Church is on the offensive not the defensive.
That’s a bunch of bunk! ‘Retreat, hell! We advance to
the rear.’ In some of these stupid little ditties of
modern Christian songs, “If you want joy, jump for
it!”.... I remember the last Church |
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