How to be 'against' the 'church'

Many of us who have been trying to follow Jesus for some time have come up against 'church' issues. If you have never questioned something about 'church' then I'd be worried.  When I began seeing things that were not sitting right with me I found that I had to weigh the advantages of serving in that church.  I now know that this is a wrong approach.  If something is wrong I should have prayerfully confronted it.  That way, if I was wrong I could be corrected but if I was right there was opportunity to examine the issues.

If only things were this clean cut!

It turned out pretty rough for me but within all of that was God's intent for good for me and my family.  Now I have a healthy perspective of Church backed up by Scripture.  There is a growing number of people who are waking up to the issues with 'church.'  When I was shown the issues I reacted.  Not realizing that it was entirely by grace that I could discern clearly what was / is going on, I created an us / them paradigm.  Also, because the issues made me angry, I found it difficult to articulate what the Lord was showing me without my own emotional response short circuiting it.   I now see that there was a time that I wasn't supposed to be spitting nails about the issues, but rather allowing my heart to receive the fullness of what the Lord was doing.

The reality of what the Lord was doing is now evident.  He has brought me out of the historical church systems and structures, showed me how it really isn't glorifying Him and sent me to speak into those systems and structures.  Growing into the realization of this was/is not easy and at times I can slip into attack mode.  I think I'm getting better at confronting the issues without Christians disregarding my message because it contains 'Grrrrrr' instead of Grace.

I have some dear friends who think I've gone 'soft' as I am the first to point out that Jude tells us to 'contend for the faith.'  That word has military overtones... to fight! So where is the balance?  Do we kung fu everyone who is associated with historical, man-made practices that dishonor the King?  If the answer is 'no' then how do we contend?  How do we fight?

Firstly we need to be really honest with ourselves.  "Have I genuinely got rid of all personal hurt over the 'church?"  If not we will hurt people... 'hurt people hurt people.'  Secondly, in our efforts to be all about being led by Jesus... is Jesus leading you to do this contending?  Bearing in mind that Jude was under attack leading for him to have to fight... are we contending if we aren't being attacked? Thirdly, are you using scripture as a weapon?  That's not what it is used for.  All things have to be in love.

I am not in any way minimizing the effects of leaders who have mistreated Christians.  But part of your healing is to realize that you willingly gave yourself to that system and structure... its erroneous nature came back to bite... and boy does it hurt!  I'm a survivor.  I had some tough times but now I see clearly that God wanted me to be outside the hive so I could comment on it and try to help others to see how self serving church can be when we really need to detach from it all and reconnect to our source, the glorified, risen Jesus Christ.

So I am 'against' elements of the historical church, the way it practices church and dishonors my King.  But many aren't ready to be free.  They can't see my point of view because they aren't able to process it.  To them the Pastor is their conduit from God.  They need 45 mins of singing and call it 'worship.'  They have fictional 'batteries' that need to be charged so they can survive the week.  The concept of being constantly plugged into their living source and gathering to celebrate that over food and drink is heresy to those unaware of the biblical definition of 'church!'  We are only here to help those whom God can speak to.

People can only hear when they have ears to hear.  Enjoy this movie clip.  It sums it up for me.

Gary Ward