Has the church become an attraction to the rich and a deterrent to the poor? Imagine with me what you think this woman feels:
She is a single parent of two small children. She struggles to pay the bills with only a menial job. She has no child support from the children's father or her family.
One day, she decides to enter a church's door for the first time in many, many years. Her children are with her, frightfully holding her hands. The building is unfamiliar and the faces are strange.
She looks at the outward beauty and expense of the church building, and then at herself and her children beside her. She is immediately uncomfortable and feels out of place. She is not dressed in trendy or fashionable clothes. Her hair isn't styled but simply tied back in a ponytail. Her children at her sides are clean, but the knees of their pants reveal hand-sewed patches, and their shirts have the remains of old stains with the look of being washed dozens of times.
She considers turning around, but instead gathers her courage and enters the building. She immediately receives a mechanical greeting from a lady who hands her a bulletin but says nothing that shows any real personal interest. Once the greeting is complete, the mother continues with her children, glancing about for clues from the crowd of where to go. She passes a coffee shop and a gift store — it almost looks more to her like a mall than a church, which despairingly reminds her that she does not have the extra money to spend on such frivolities.
They enter the main part of the building where she and her two children quietly slip through the crowd and find a seat in one of the back pews. They are unnoticed and she is both relieved and disappointed. She wonders how emotions can be such a contrasting mixture.
As they sit waiting, not knowing what to expect, the young woman becomes dismayed at the darkness of the large sanctuary. The lights have been dimmed, but she yearns for some light, even a distant glimmer of sunshine at the end of the long, dark tunnel of her life.
Right on time, the musicians and singers walk onto the stage. The leader asks everyone to stand and he leads the people in song. The music is lively, but the words make no sense. There is no comfort in not understanding, and so there is no answer for her desperate soul that fiercely longs for relief and healing from her inner pain.
Then a man comes on stage. She assumes he is "the" pastor, but she is mistaken for there are many pastors in this large city church. This one gives announcements of coming events, but she knows within herself that she will not be attending. She does not feel comfortable inviting herself, even though the pastor says everyone is welcome. Not having someone personally invite her makes her feel like she is nobody, unnamed and unnoticed, and hence unwanted.
There is one more song, and then another man comes on stage to bless the offering. But first he gives a short message of the importance of giving money to the church. He says that we are no longer under the Law of the Old Testament, except, of course, the law of tithing ten percent of your income, which must be kept if you want God's blessings. She instantly feels guilty, but the man continues on to say that if you are a visitor, you are not required to give. She is temporarily relieved, until a disturbing thought comes to mind.
"This means if I come back, I will have to give ten percent of what I earn, or I and my children will be cursed of God." She panics for she doesn't have the money to give. Each month is a struggle just to come up with enough money to pay the rent and sufficiently care for her two children.
The man up front continues even further and says that you need to have faith that God will provide all your needs as you are obedient to this command of God.
The woman thinks again. "I don't have enough faith not to take my own life, let alone enough faith to believe there could be a better future for me and my children where we trust God to provide for our needs." She imagines giving her money to this beautiful, elaborate church, which has a multitude of staff personale, while she and her children live in an old, dilapidated mobile home, with the heater barely high enough to keep the water in the plumbing from freezing.
She wants to grab her children and run out of the building, but then another man gets up and begins to speak a message that leaves her feeling more confused as she tries to understand it's meaning and purpose.
Finally, there is a small prayer and the service ends. The young mother and her two children leave the church building feeling utterly hopeless of ever being part of this family of God. The woman feels inadequate to meet the Church's financial requirements and become a blessed child of God. She and her children never come back and her needs are left unmet.
What happened to the mother? Did she eventually kill herself? In an attempt to numb her pain and inadequacy, did she become an alcoholic and a drug abuser? Did she end up working the streets? Were her children taken from her by social services? Did the two abandoned children end up being raised and abused in the foster care system?
The answer to all these questions is yes.
"Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock,
in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers
to care for the church of God,
which he obtained with His own blood."
Acts 20:28
What would happen if a land owner lovingly brought a scruffy-looking sheep to his flock, but his shepherd closed a blind eye and didn't care to notice when that sheep wandered off? After all the sheep's wool is worthless and will bring no valuable income.
Leaders of a church are commanded by our sovereign and loving God to be shepherds, to care for all the sheep that He brings in. But christians can become so money-oriented and self-absorbed that they have no idea what type of message the church is giving to the lost, desperate, and hungry in this world.
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