The world is a hot mess! Not many would argue this point. There are murders in our streets and in our homes. Children are being bought and sold by sex traffickers. Hatred and intolerance are the order of the day. One cannot trust the media or the government. Morality is at an all-time low. Family values are a thing of the past. Video games and social media are the central influences of our youth. The debauchery practiced during the reign of the Roman Empire does not hold a candle to the practices of today’s society. Laws protect the criminal. Surely we are on the express train to the End of Days. Armeggedon must be just over the horizon. All these statements lead me to the big question. Where are our Churches?
More than just an hour a week
Don’t get me wrong, I think there are many strong Christians congregating together to grow in the image of Christ. However, it isn’t enough to meet for an 
hour on Sunday and then go about the status quo. We should take a lesson from Christ tossing the money changers from the Temple. It is way past time to stand up. Be heard. Make a difference. Jesus was not a pushover. We shouldn’t be either. We are supposed to love each other. Does the father show his son love if he does not offer him direction and correction if needed? Does God the Father not guide and correct his errant children.
Churches as Something for Everybody
Churches have obviously not caused the downfall of society as we know it. They did not destroy family values. But why have they not taken a wider stance in rebuilding the lost values of our people? Have we grown too comfortable in our pews hearing messages to make us feel good? Have our 
churches, with their coffee bars, and stage performances, their gymnasiums, and their pablum-for-the-soul preachers rotted our perception of what we are to be about? Beloved, if your Pastor is not challenging you to be more like our Savior, to pick up your cross and bear the weight of its burden, you may as well have stayed home. We were made in God’s image, not He in ours.
Casting Crowns is one of the leading groups in Christian music today. One of their most popular songs challenges the complacency of today’s Church. The lyrics to If We Are The Body get right to the marrow of the matter:
“But if we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching?
Why aren’t His hands healing?
Why aren’t His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren’t His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?”
Where are our Churches?
Why are more of our churches not present in the inner cities, teaching children to read? Should not more church groups be feeding and clothing the homeless? Why are there not enough church-run food pantries? Should not our churches and our pastors be incensed by the lack of respect and love for our fellow man that has become so evident in our youth culture?
What are they teaching?
There are far too many mega-churches today, with edifices that cost millions of dollars, preaching the gospel of prosperity, conforming God into our image, hardly ever making congregants squirm in their pews because the message from the stage confronts their sinful lives. Letting their people pick and choose which sins to overlook.
We as a brotherhood of Christians have become lazy. Our Churches have allowed that to happen. It is apparently too easy to attend services on Sunday and retreat back to our comfort zones. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are
not being challenged effectively. We cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus if we are not making the effort to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It is way past time to reach out to our neighbors in need. It is time to put down our smartphones and parent our children. We may not feel that we can change the world but we can change our part of it. We just have to show up. Stand up.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34 ESV
I don’t believe that Jesus was proclaiming the need for violence but 
challenging His followers to be different from the rest of the world. To stand up for Christian principles, and challenge the world to bring change. When has there been a greater need than now to do just that? We must stand up, become warriors for Christ. Pick up our swords and fight for God. If your church is not moving you toward making a stand, to reach out to those in need of some Jesus in their lives, not moving you to be the hands and feet of Christ; then maybe it is time to change…churches.
