While I Mused The Fire Burned - "Sacred Cows Make Good Hamburger" #1

     Just today I was talking to the executive pastor of a large evangelical church which by all accounts has had unusual growth and success over the last few years.  They have a godly pastor and a great staff, but my friend told me that changes must come.  He said "we have all the whistles and bells," but our people are shallow and do not live what they profess on Sunday.  They have all the "right stuff" without getting the right results.  The "whistles and bells" don't seem to be creating godly disciples.

     Sadly, this story can be told across the broad spectrum of the Christian church.  The most significant problems for the Church originate in our becoming lost in earthly cultures.  The net effect is that we attribute our cultures' values and beliefs to God and, in essence, reinvent God in our own image.  We have sacrificed transformation for culturally-determined "sacred cow" practices. Let me give you several Sacred Cows which need to be ground into hamburger:

     1.  Worship services ad nauseum. Most of us have failed to understand "worship" as something we do to honor our relationship with God and that requires us to bring something to the presence of God as an act of worship.  Sadly, worship has become an event that is viewed as entertainment or an event from which we should get something.  God is secondary if He is a factor at all.

     2.  Preaching without teaching/training.  Our Sunday experience is a one-way communications process where the people who come are passive listeners.  If it is really teaching there must active participation from both sides.  In many, if not most churches, the message simply fades away at the close of the service seldom to be thought of again.  Where is the training that really affects change?  Start living on Monday what you sing about on Sunday!

     3.  Orthodoxy without orthopraxy.  Right thinking (orthodoxy) must always be paired with orthopraxy (right behavior).  When a person comes to Christ, his or her direction is changed, but following Jesus will also bring a change of lifestyle.  Right living is as important as right doctrine.

     In part 2 of this blog I will give 3 other "sacred cows" which need to be dealt with.  Grinding up these customs which have grown up in the church is no easy process, but we will never be free of the problems which cultural Christianity breeds unless we deal with them at the root.  My friend who talked to me about the plight of his church will only continue to have significant issues unless the people's understanding of the gospel can be significantly changed and consumer christianity can be eradicated.  Sacred Cows make good hamburger.  Start grinding!