Danny's Men's Studies

Nightline's program last night (Nov 13) had a segment on "U2-charist" where churches are starting to using U2 music as part of the worship service. I like how it ended with the reporter saying:

If U2 will fill his pews and the donation baskets? well that's a blessing.

And then the anchor of Nightline (Terry Moran) ends with:

Upon this rock I suppose this church is built.

And how appropriate! Church has gone mainstream where packing a room and collecting money seems so primary to today's church mission. Never mind that many churches purport to "preach good news to the unsaved." I've been in too many churches where building program is very central to the "growth" of the church (including the one we are attending today).

What a contrast to what Jesus wanted for His Church:

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24

Just as God was best represented in the tent based tabernacle [rather than the Jerusalem Temple fixated in one location], so too Jesus wants us to worship God free from physical place with the focus on the spiritual and the truth. It's so ironic that Jesus didn't even have a home ("Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."" Matthew 8:20) yet all churches end up building monuments to themselves. I'll never call them monuments for God since God doesn't need (let alone want) buildings but a heart change one person at a time.

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.