How bazaar?

I know the American church has long been distracted from its primary duty - to be the means by which the Gospel of Jesus Christ is carried to the ends of the earth. Two interesting examples came to me this morning of how we might be off track.

First a new commercial I saw several times during the morning news. It gave several examples of good works the Methodist church has done over its history and then encouraged people to "re-think church" and they could start by visiting their website rethinkchurch.org.

When I visited the website it had a rotating banner at the top declaring these various works, things like "introducing innovative teaching methods into the early 20th century" and "providing education resources to new immigrants in the 1920s". At the bottom of each of these accomplishments it says - "That's church!" Is it really? I'll get back to that in a moment.

OK, the other interesting thing that happened was a person called my office wanting to know when the "bazaar" was. I told the caller I was not entirely sure what a bazaar is, so she explained it was when our church had crafts and chicken. I am sure there is more to it than that, but I had heard enough to let her know she had called the wrong number. She quickly said sorry and I assume went back to searching for the church with the bazaar.

Do I think a church having a "bazaar" is necessarily bad - no. Do I think the Methodist church and other churches have done good and Christ honoring work by meeting the practical needs of people - Yes.

So what is my problem? Well, I hope the church know for its "bazaar", also is known for proclaiming the gospel. The re-think church website is actually free of the gospel as far as I can tell, and that is far more troubling. If you go far enough by following some links listed in the body of their FAQ's section, you can find Jesus mentioned. What I could not find was any mention of sin or our separation from God, or of how Jesus Christ is necessary to solve these problems.

They seem to be very careful to present themselves as a church that is totally open to all and without controversy, they are clear that their focus is on meeting people's needs and helping them find ways to help others. However, I fear that they have left out the most important need people have, to be redeemed by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That is bazaar, sad and certainly not doing Jesus' will.

Consider Jesus' description of how the church would be viewed by the world, as it made proclaiming His words the primary task -

John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

The re-think church folk seem intent on being loved by the world, and if they are, I hope they would consider if it is because they have done great humanitarian works, because they are so inclusive or is it because they have removed the gospel and the offense Jesus promised it would bring?

It could be they have re-thought church to the point that it should not be called church at all!

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."