Not Surprised
Part 1-When God is God
On Sunday morning December 7, 1941, Japanese planes approached Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for a daring attack on the American naval fleet that was anchored there. The timing of the Japanese attack was intentional as they knew the naval base would be slow to wake up on a Sunday morning. The result was catastrophic…in less than 2 hours more than 2500 people were killed, 1000 more wounded, 18 ships were damaged or destroyed and nearly 300 planes were lost.
As word quickly spread across the country, the nation was in shock. How could this have happened? There was an immediate cry for a declaration of war and retaliation. While the general public was shocked and surprised, those within the military and government had been keeping a close eye on the Japanese movements for months, even years. They had feared an attack but couldn’t predict the time or place.
The truth is the Japanese were simply acting according to who they had become, a war-mongering nation of fanatical zealots who would obey the emperor’s wishes at any cost. In the decade preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had undertaken a plan to conquer and control the entire Pacific rim. The Japanese Army raped and pillaged their way through China, Korea, Burma, the Philippines, and more. It was only a matter of time before they would have to engage hostilities with the United States. The Japanese were simply acting according to the nature, who they had become as a people. Pearl Harbor was a wake-up call for the United States who would no longer be surprised by an attack from the Japanese.
Big Surprise
In many churches today, I am afraid it has become much the same scenario. Sleepy congregations meet each Sunday morning going through the same motions they went through the week before. There is little to no expectation that anything exiting will happen in the service, much less have God show up in His power and turn the place upside down. Unfortunately, if something amazing did happen, many people would be irritated that the service ran long or that they were taken out of their normal routine.
Progressing alongside these attitudes has been the steady decline of the American church over the past few decades. Is it any wonder that church attendance is declining in general when so many supposed followers of Jesus view anything out of the ordinary as an inconvenience or annoyance?
For many churches across our country, new people rarely visit, few ever inquire about salvation, even fewer commit to Christ or are baptized. (can I give statistics?) The few that do are simply the children of those who have attended in decades past.
So when a new couple visits with their children or someone seeks counseling for salvation, many congregations are surprised. It is sad what the church has been reduced to in these days.
The church about which Jesus told Peter…
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18
Shifting Priorities
We live in the busiest culture on the planet. We rush from one commitment to the next. Too many people simply feel overwhelmed and struggle to prioritize what is most important in their lives. As a result, their personal relationship with God and church attendance falls somewhere in between soccer practice and the new season of the latest popular TV show..
When Jesus called the disciples, He didn’t ask them to see if they could make some time to fit them into their busy lives. He called them to truly “follow” Him and make Him the primary priority in their lives.
Jesus stated it this way when addressing the crowds…
Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23 NIV)
Some take this to mean that their entire lives must become centered around religious activity, but I think Jesus is saying that our commitment to Him and God’s word should be the prevailing priority in our lives. From this one commitment, all other priorities will fall in line with God’s will and desires for our lives.
For example, a 38 year old who is married with three children who has made following Jesus the prevailing priority in his life would understand that developing his relationship with Christ is his prevailing priority and that from that would follow being the best husband and father he could be. This would be followed by his career, his friends, his hobbies, and more. However, the average American male makes his career and providing for his family his prevailing priority. In juggling this pursuit, he tries to make time for his wife and children, his friends and hobbies, and also church and spiritual matters. Invariably, church and spiritual growth get swallowed up by the tyranny of the urgent of work deadlines, soccer practice, etc. Church attendance with his family is sporadic at best as is any Bible study or prayer.
When this family does come to church on any given Sunday, they are detached from the body life and have little to no excitement about being there. As this becomes more of the norm than the exception, it is easy to see how church attendance has suffered and how excitement is at an all-time low.
Religiosity
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 7:21 NIV
In every church there are those who have jumped through every hoop, completed every ceremony, but seemingly have no idea what it truly means to be “in Christ”. For them, church attendance becomes their weekly dues…but don’t ask them to pay more than is required. Church better not run long, and the music better not be loud, and the youth pastor better keep the teenagers quiet, and…well you get the picture. Again, it is easy to see how having too many religious attenders can slow the growth of the church.
During my first few weeks at a new church where I pastored, a couple approached me and commented that the services seemed to be running longer since I came to the church and they wanted to know if this change was going to be permanent. I explained that we had extended the services 15 minutes to allow for more worship and creative elements. They announced that this would be their last Sunday at the church and that church was “supposed to be an hour pastor” and they would be transferring a church that had services that lasted an hour.
Another gentleman approached me about the starting time of the church asking if we could start 15 minutes earlier so his Bible study could beat the other churches to the local diner for lunch. Another left the church because we wouldn’t sing the Doxology every week of the year, still another because we printed my sermon outline in the bulletin and were killing trees. This is not a statement on whether these individuals are saved, but it sure doesn’t seem like the kind of attitudes that would help to grow the church does it?
Lack of Expectations
We are all familiar with the idea of the fair-weather fan. As long as a sports team is winning and winning with style, everyone wants to be a fan. Stadiums are full, jerseys fly off the shelf, and there is a sense of excitement surrounding every move that team makes. The fan base begins to expect the team to win and games to be exciting. Let said team start losing, it is amazing how many people with jump off the bandwagon. Losing teams struggle to draw crowds, excitement, or momentum for their organization. Why? Because there are much lower expectations for being competitive and winning…and who wants to watch a team lose every week?
Unfortunately similar attitudes affect the growth of the church. Too often, there is little to no sense of expectation for something amazing to happen in the church services. Week after week, people simply show up and go through the motions with little to no expectation that anything miraculous or amazing will happen, especially if the church has been declining or if a pastor has recently moved to a different church.
But here is the disconnect…God is present in the worship at your church!!! God, the Creator of the universe, the Savior of the world, the Healer of broken heart, the restorer of marriages, the provider of all things…our Holy, Powerful, Amazing God is present in our worship and yet, we come expecting this week to be as uneventful as last week. We are blind!!!
The truth is we should come each week braced for God to shake us to our foundations…Annie Dillard wrote…
Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping GOD may wake someday and take offense, or the waking GOD may draw us to where we can never return. Annie Dillard
What should we expect?
Find out in my next release!
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