The vast majority of the contemporary church has made drastic changes over the years, and unfortunately, many of these changes are for the worse. The church has gradually adapted, and often even conformed, to the declining society of the world. Ravi Zacharias said that in the process of making the church seeker-friendly, we have made it user-unfriendly. While trying to bring people into the church, we have often forgotten to help those already in it to grow. We have often made the church something like a rally spot, rather than a place where spiritually hungry and thirsty people could be filled. We have focused on making the services “fun” and have often not given the people something solid for their minds to chew on.
We have been parroting phrases that we know are right but have not given them much thought and have not pondered on what they really mean. We have often not thought our faith through carefully. We often do not know why we believe what we believe. Our answers to the hungry questions of others have often been shallow. We have often sacrificed solid, spiritual food on the altar of entertainment.
We need to continually wake ourselves up to the fact that the church is partly responsible for the state of the nations. We have ceased to make an impact on the world because we have become so much like it. A light conforming to darkness will not change the darkness. We need to start hungering and thirsting for the depths of God’s Word. We need to remember Romans 12:2, which tells us that we should not conform to the patterns of this world. We need to be serious about our faith and to think our faith through, and know why we believe what we believe. And as 1 Peter 3:15 says, let us always be ready to effectively answer anyone who asks about the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
But praise the Lord that there are still many people, especially young students, who desire to come into the church to think seriously. There are those who want to receive the solid food of the Word of God, and to burrow into its depths. Let us pray that God would raise up a generation of strong, firmly-rooted people who will revive the church and cause it to shine once again like a city on a hill.
Blessings,
Nathanael Chong
Agreed. I love the way you put it: "A light conforming to darkness will not change the darkness." That is so very true, and yet it seems that this is exactly what our modern churches are trying to do. Instead of us changing the world, the world is changing us. It can be very disheartening to think about. Which is of course why we don't need to just dwell on it, but take it to God.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post!