Are we jsut playing church?

Is our goal just to get people in a building or see them in heaven?

I was sitting in Avenue this past week and I couldn’t help but beign to ask myself this question.

have you ever seen those memes where people say “These people have no idea that they are in the presence of a certfied forklift operator”?

As I sat in the coffee shop, this question popped in my mind, “Do these people know that they are loved? Do they know that i am a carrier of the holy Spirit?”

Have I become so acostmed to jsut playing church that I seclsude myself within my own chrsitian bubbble?

There’s that phrase that is so chrsitain cliche that it makes sme laugh but it does have some mertit to it, “the world doesn’t read the bible, it reads you”

Don’t get me wrong, It teriffyies me too. It freaks me right out.

It’s uncomfortable, that’s for sure.

Because it is so widespread and subtle, this framing doesn’t often seem so deadly. But it turns Christianity into a product akin to a smartphone app: something the “user” can opt in or out of as is convenient, or appropriate as needed but only insofar as it suits them. If it is in any way uncomfortable or costly, the “app” is easily deleted.

But a Christianity that’s accessed only as it suits us, only when it’s comfortable and on our terms, is not really Christianity. To truly follow Jesus is to flip the cultural script on comfort. It is to shift one’s gaze away from a consumer self and toward our worthy God; from an inward, self-help orientation to an outward, others-helping orientation. Healthy Christians are always wary of easing into comfortable Christianity.

C. S. Lewis once said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Why is it important that we avoid falling into comfortable Christianity? Because comfortable Christianity is far from the costly, inconvenient, idol-crushing, cross-shaped path for disciples of Jesus. Comfortable Christianity has little prophetic to say to a comfortable, consumerist world. Comfortable Christianity has little urgency in mission and little aptitude for growth.

Uncomfortable Christianity, however, leads to life and transformation. It leads us to rely on God and not on ourselves; to serve rather than be served; to live lives marked by sacrifice. It leads us to do hard things, to embrace hard truths, to do life with hard people for the sake and glory of the One who did the hardest thing. It may be uncomfortable, but it will be worth it. On the other side of discomfort is delight in Christ.

Be flexible and ready to move when mission and evangelistic opportunities arise. Be willing to sacrifice comfort and the familiar when the Spirit is at work and the gospel is advancing

But church shouldn’t be about being perfectly understood and met in our comfort zone; it should be about understanding and knowing God more, and meeting him where he’s at.

It’s about becoming like “living stones” that are “being built up as a spiritual house,” focused on and held together by Jesus, the stone the builders rejected who became the cornerstone (1 Pet. 2:4–7).

Imagine if Yahweh had bailed on Israel the minute they said or did something offensive, opting instead to “shop around” for a new people (Canaanites? Philistines? Egyptians?). Imagine if God were as fickle and restless as we are.

We don’t grow spiritually from Chipotle-style “build your own” comfort faith, consuming church as it suits our hunger and hankerings. We grow by committing to a community that pursues Jesus, developing together a taste for the bread of life.

But maybe it’s just me, I find myself struggling intertnally because I want to live a life that is evidinve of the life given to me but holy crap, that’s terifying.