Why AWOL?

Have we given up being the church in America? Today churches are smooth, sexy, and big while others are dead, stuck in tradition and irrelevant, not trying to be faithful under the lordship of Christ. Through the ages, many things have happened to destroy the integrity of churches and Christians. The integrity of Christianity is being questioned because people have seen and experienced people that go to church and they are no different than any one else. Churches provide good service to the people of the church, but what about to the rest of the community or the world? Most goals of the modern church can be accomplished without God. The world and the world's methodology of success has made church become irrelevant to most people, even those that go to church. How long will we pretend that everything is okay? How long will we go unfulfilled and chasing “rabbit trails?”

The existing church is still a valuable and needed expression of Christianity in our culture and world. It is our foundation and the body of Christ. Yet, “church” as we know it has many cracks and major repairs are needed. We need to not split but bridge the gap. Anxiety that is seen in leadership of the church and members, people of unspoken fear, people not knowing what to do, nor willing to let go of what they know, in order to be something more and greater, is a great concern of ours. As this continues to go on year after year, people of the church have become joyless, bored, unsure, not knowing love or how to love, making church a social club rather than a living organism that is under the lordship of Jesus Christ. The tools and techniques that worked in previous decades are simply not working any longer. A new “paradigm,” a new vision of reality, a fundamental change in our thoughts, precepts and dedication is in need.

Today, we live in a new world: a world of abundance. Pparents have done what they have set out to do, which is make their kids lives better than what they had. With that footing, our younger generations will not die of starvation, but they will starve spiritually by getting lost and overwhelmed by the abundance of life. Younger generations have been stripped of their purity and morality by TV, movies, etc. They have been given false passages to adulthood with drinking, sex, self-gratification, etc. Most would say this is no big deal, but in a spiritual sense, they have been wounded, given baggage, heartache and shame by a world that wants them to think they are important, yet all they want is their money in exchange for an identity.

The world will never give people who they are or their true identity. We know this as a fact as we look at this nation as a whole: we are the most broken nation that we've ever been in history. The most depressive nation in history and the most addicted nation in history. This should tell us Christians and non-Christians that we need Another Way of Living.