"You're Doing It Wrong"

You're doing it wrong. 

It is a funny way people have been using to tell others that they are using a basic tool or doing a menial task incorrectly. As I reflect lately on the church, it's place in society, the effectiveness of it's programming, and its purpose I can't help but imagine God looking down from above chuckling and saying "You're doing it wrong"

I have become convinced that the church was never meant for the unbeliever.

At times we tend to glorify 'seeker services' or make it important that visitors feel comfortable and that they will return. Even leaders of our services say that Sunday morning (for most services) are meant to be a time of celebration of what God has done throughout the week and recharging and re energising before another week of serving Him.


Yet- do our services, our mindset about the church as a whole reflect that?

When I visited China the church was different than our North American churches (imagine that eh?). The people who attended these churches had heard about Jesus throughout the week- they had been told by a friend, had been attending small group gatherings for weeks or months. In China the church is persecuted. You only enter the church if you want to worship God- if you fully believe in Jesus and are willing to put your reputation, your freedom, your everything on the line.

The church meeting in China was a time of celebrating what God had done, a time of preparing for the coming week, a time of worship- the focus was not on those who were 'wishy washy.' The believers interacted with them throughout the week and challenged them in their beliefs and thoughts Monday-Saturday. Sunday is for the believers- Sunday is to worship, Sunday is to come together as a family. Churches need to stop caring about brining non-believers into their fellowship on Sunday morning and care more about helping people believe throughout the week.

Reading with Power

This semester I have been challenged. I have realized the POWER of scripture.

It IS the Word of God.
It IS relevant.
It IS living
It IS active
It IS salvation
It IS important
It IS able to do so much more than we can imagine


Reading scripture out loud is something that happens every Sunday at thousands upon thousands of church around the world, and yet the word is not read out loud as it were living and active in out lives. It is read as though it is just an old fairy tale that has been told over and over again. As if people should know it and that it is not actually being listened to. Well, when it is read as such it will be listened to in the same way.

The Word of God is Him speaking directly to His people!
Why is it spoken in a monotone voice, with a voice of timidity, or stumbled through.

I am a firm believer that we need to learn how to read scripture.It has a lot of emotion, a lot of power, a lot of authority and needs to be given the power that is due it. Practise it, see the emotion, the setting, the true actual people who were living that story.

Sheet music tells a musician when the song is to rise and fall, when to be powerful and when to be soft. When to pause, the tempo to enter into, each note has a speed to follow. (I am not a musician by any means and am simply remembering my into to music class in my undergrad so forgive me for the wrong terms). Scripture does not have all of these same notations, but we need to include them when reading it. This is powerful stuff and often we set up our pastor for failure before he even gets up to preach simply by reading the Scripture in a way that does not engage people. They are not listening before the sermon even begins.

Allow the word to be living and active.          
                                                 Not only on Sunday morning but in your own devotional time as well.

"For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword"

                                                                                         -Hebrews 4:12

"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ" 

                                                                                        -Romans 10:17