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Or, do you have another viewpoint:
And so it happened again the other day. A fellow parent asked me why we go to church on Sunday when you can pray just as easily at home and be just as close to God outside of church as inside. And I get it.
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1. The church that the bible speaks of is not a building. It is the people or those people who have done what is required to become Children of God. Seems the parent doesn't know this.
2. I'm pretty sure that the parent has not read or understood Hebrews 10:24-25.
Posted on January 17, 2009 8:52 PM
I had a much longer response to that column, which made me as angry as anything else I've ready today.
It was pablum, absolute mental treacle. I certainly hope a believer would be able to find god in church. That's like finding a goldfish in his tank - he's supposed to be swimming in there.
I'd be a heck of a lot more impressed if she could find me a god who is down in the muck, who can be seen in the margins where people are losing their jobs and homes, dying of cold or preventable diseases or bullets. Find me the god when someone loses their mind to addiction or their child to a disease with no cure or their best friend to a drunk driver.
That would be a conversation worth having.
Posted on January 18, 2009 12:15 AM
I get it too. I'm not saying it's right. But I get it.
For I have seen things God would have nothing to do with go on in His house. I have seen evil put on a suit and sit on a pew and pray.
It is a conversation worth having, Mark. I have several dear friends who, for this reason, will not set foot in a church. But they believe in God because they did find Him - in the farthest margins and the murkiest muck (sometimes that's the best place to look). They've come to understand that their issues are not so much with God - but His men and women.
Call it "mental treacle", Mark, but God IS in all of the situations you shake your angry fist against. All you really have to do is look up and call His Name. I have seen Him work wonders. I have also seen Him say, "No."
As for church, I've stayed on the outside-looking-longingly-in for years . . . only recently coming to terms with the notion that just because there are people in the Temple that an angry Jesus would throw out, does not mean I shouldn't be in there.
It seems to me that it's not so much about where God is - but where a believer should be.
Posted on January 18, 2009 9:13 AM