Missing the Point

An insurance company I won't name has a series of ads about how easy it is to save money with them. One has a woman in the park. "How easy is it to save money with them? Easy as putting your fitness tracker on your dog." And a moment later she assures a young couple jogging by that she already got her 40,000 steps. I know; it's meant to be humor. I got it. But it is a perfect example of missing the point. The point of a fitness tracker is not to get step counts. The point is to get steps -- to exercise. But we often miss the point.

The most glaring example to me of late is church. I think we've been in the world too long and we've bought their lies. So we configure church to gather numbers which, by the way, isn't working. In America Christianity is declining. At least, so says the Pew Research Center. Wait! How can that be? Look at the megachurches. But the numbers don't lie, and it appears that our attempts to build the church aren't working.

How can that be? We've put in the latest gear, cranked up the latest tunes, marketed the church to gather people. "If we did hymns," I've been told, "we'd have no one here." Why? Because people don't connect with hymns. Ah, there it is. We're trying to connect with people on all sorts of levels. And we're just not doing it very well.

We've missed the point.

Worship isn't about music that moves you. Worship is about worship. It is an outward thing -- toward God -- not inward. Preaching isn't about connecting with the congregation; it's about preaching -- forthtelling what God says. It's expounding on the Word, not giving cool quips and clever stories. Church isn't about gathering people; it's about building God's people. It's about one another, not me. The point is not connecting with people; the point is connecting people with the Savior.

So we try this new experiment, taking the reins ourselves. Marketing techniques in hand, we try to build Christ's church. We end up with diminishing numbers, sallow worship, and shallow Christians. The programs aren't working because the hearts aren't changing; just the trappings. We've missed the point.

We need to get back to church. We need to invest ourselves in God's Word, involve ourselves in each others' lives, prime the pump to glorify God above all else. But we're happy with out mediocrity because, after all, we have a catchy Christian tune on our lips and what more could you ask? I could ask a lot more. I guess I'll have to ask the One who will build His church.