What is church for?

Great question right? One would think that the answer would be simple...and yet ask some people around you and see what responses you get.

"Church is a place to sing praise."
"It's all about values."
"My parents always took me, and it gives me a feeling of connection."
"It's the right thing to do."
"It's important for my kids..."

Those all seem like good answers...but then why are so many leaving churches today? Why do so many find church boring and irrelevant? (Because many of them are!) The very fabric of our nation is coming undone even as the churches falter.

For the last several decades we (in the church) found out that we can build big churches by focusing on the peripherals.
"If we just have the best song service in town we can grow!"
"If we just teach a person how to be good in this broken down world everything will be fine."

Many churches today have become Christian Country Clubs. Many have become mere concert venues. Many have been shaped so that the ultimate goal is to further the ends of the local church alone. The result? We have people claiming Christianity that have no idea what that means. Christianity has become about "values" or about what political party you normally vote for. Churches have become the place where "good" people go on the weekends to affirm their goodness. We have an entire generation that has grown up in institutionalized churches that have no idea what it means to be a follower of Christ. They are being eaten up by the new philosophies and the new ideas that they are being exposed to.

What is church for? It is for Christ.

Do we at West Shore want to grow? Yes. Have we spent the last year and a half going through the hard work of changing how we do things in order to be relevant? Absolutely. Are we continuing to build and work toward having a great contemporary worship service? Abso-flippin-lutely! Howver, we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater as the old (and quite disturbing) phrase goes. But the essence of everthing that we are doing is to call people, young and old, into a genuine life-altering relationship with Jesus Christ.

You see we are just crazy enough to truly believe that Jesus is alive after being crucified, dead and buried and is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father. We are just silly enough (according to today's cultural mindset) to believe that the Living God is still calling people out of their brokenness and addiction to sin to live a free life through repentance and restoration. These are not mere lifeless doctrines that have their residence in the abstract. This is real life, lived in connection to the Real God.

Yes, church is the right thing to do. It is great for the kids. It is right to continue in your Christian heritage. It is where we connect with other people in healthy relationships. It is where we become better people through relationship with Christ... Support missionaries, hear the gospel preached, praise and worship our God, get blessed, serve our community, help the poor, etc. etc. etc.

But it is about Christ! The central focus should be about Jesus. Are you madly in love with Jesus? Do you know Him like that yet? Have you had a life-altering experience with Jesus Christ, or have you just hung around all the stuff that has the Christian label to it? You see without Jesus sitting on the throne of your heart or beating as the heart of a church, all the other stuff is just garbage...stop eating it.

John 15:5 (TNIV) “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Philippians 3:7-8 (TNIV) But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ