When Our Assumptions Unravel (#1032)
After a quick discussion about the false self and how what we value can be opposed to what God values, Kyle invites Wayne to process an email he received from a close friend documenting his growing concerns about how he has viewed the church. They discuss how modern churches evolved from a community-based model to an institutional structure with a single leader as the face of the organization, and how that can easily lead to corruption and abuse of power. As our lifelong assumptions begin to unravel, we will do well to find our security not in systems, doctrines, or religious requirements but in our experience of God's love in daily life.
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I was so enamored with the megachurch with a charismatic leader at the helm that I moved 1000 miles to join the church…only to leave a couple months later disillusioned at why the dreams the leader espoused didn’t come true in my life. Thankfully family and friends welcomed me back with open arms…and I held no ill will toward the church. In fact, about five years later, I visited the church again, invited as a ‘VIP’, where I was asked in a special service to make a significant financial contribution! I left a second time disillusioned, knowing full well I couldn’t make the commitment…and wondering why I was even asked. Out of sheer curiosity, some 30-odd years later, with the charismatic leader passed away, I still follow the church at a distance online…the church becoming more of a ‘traditional’ church with a local focus instead of a national one. It is a church now I wouldn’t or couldn’t join because of geography…God had other plans for me than what I had for sure.
When I answered His call more then 40 years ago – I found it at first a boring experience.
No Trumpets from Heaven, no vision of Jesus, no healing not even a goosebump.
I disliked the same people and had the same weaknesses and sins.
The only change I could figure out was that I knew I am with Him and had a kind of peace.
Later I found out this is the essence of church. “The called out ones”.
HE and I. A yourney where His love flows to and sometimes ? through me.
The whole Definition of church is wrong.
The picture we have – in talking/thinking about church is a construct made by people and is fare away from gods design.
And when it comes to power, most of what I see is power that tickles the ego.
But I think we will see more of it pointing exclusivly to gods love in the future.