A Simple Neighborhood

So, I visited a new church today. After spending 3 months at a Vineyard church in Orlando, an hour and 10 minutes away. In that three months I found it pretty much the same as most churches in Dallas. Friendly but impossible to assimilate. Maybe it was just too far, maybe I talk too much, maybe I'm not hip enough, maybe I seem threatening somehow or maybe something much deeper is wrong with the churches in America.

I had a dream several years ago. God showed me that the church builders were building apartment complexes rather than communities...and he was not happy with it. You see in an apartment complex most are young and temporary. Not many are groomed to build as the builders don't want competition. The apartment dwellers are also not invested and will never stay for life.

In a community, you buy a house. It is long term. You have to get along with your odd neghbors and work hard to do so. When a neighborhood problem comes all the diverse neighbors will stand together. That is community. That is what church should be.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Jn 13:35 NIV

I tried to build a church like this, twice. I met with opposition from my own team and leadership. Now, I am just trying to find one.

With that in mind I went to a church in Ormond Beach today, only 6 minutes from home. Surely, I could connect with local people and make friends. The church was called Salty church. A clever hip name based on a statement from Jesus about us being the salt of the earth. Yes, salt, a preservative, used to keep meat and other food from spoiling.

Oh, you say your church is good. It is full of loving people. Maybe, it seems that way because you are assimilated. One of the inner circle. Just try looking upon the outer circle and see who is there. Are they there because they want to be? Or, are they there because like high school, they don't really fit in?

Don't think it matters? Well, this "salty" church had great worship, top notch really. The teaching was also really good. Like many churches I have been to the last 17 years. And like those churches they didn't really show much love for others...no this one didn't. In fact no one spoke to me until 20 minutes after I came in and set down. When the man who spoke did, he said " You are sitting in my seat"

Yup, that is what he said. And you teachers in churches wonder why the lost are not seeing the truth. Maybe, just maybe, you are not teaching the ones you have, to live like Jesus. Maybe you are still teaching them God is for them, rather than the fact that we should be for God.

Oh, I did strike up a conversation with the man. Of course, that is what I do. He had been going to that church for 3 years.

3 years...

I don't blame the man. I blame the teachers...and truly, so does God.

James 3:1 NIV

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

You know, I don't like apartments either