Bored

People told me that it was all about the lost. We’ve got to change things because those lost souls, those unchurched, they are dieing every day without Jesus. The way we are doing things just isn’t going to reach them. I listened and I agreed. I had spent many years living in the lost world, I still have the memories, the scars, so I needed very little goading to want to get involved.

We need to change things. We need to make adjustments because it is all about the lost. So we add this and that and the other. We seek to be relevant, cutting edge, vibrant. Those lost souls they want this. If we just had new technology and new ways of doing things then those lost souls will just pour in our front door. That is what is keeping them from Jesus, a wide screen projector with words to the songs.

To write it is embarrassing. To think that this ever sounded logical to my ears. What have I discovered? If you ever want to get something changed to more closely align with your personal preferences, the best way to do it is to claim it is for the lost, those people who are dieing without Jesus.

If you are tired of the same old song for the hundredth time it sounds selfish to say I’m tired of that old song but actually sounds holy when you say a lost world of sinners will not understand that song and can’t relate to a song book.

How much change in church done in the name of the lost is just because the current crowed is bored with the same old same old? We stick our Bible verses up on the big screen so that people don’t have to bring their Bibles. We are told that is because the lost don’t know the Bible and would be intimidated but is it really because the current crop is tired of carrying a Bible they never read to the building? Is it the fact that they don’t want to open the Bible so show it to me? I’m not sure it has anything to do with the lost.

In the past several years what I have discovered blew me away. The lost, people not raised in a church their entire life, were actually very zealous to open their Bible. Tell them how to get there for sure, but please let them get there. The stories of the Bible that I was told would intimidate them instead excited them. They want to know about the book.

They want someone to read and explain the story. They didn’t want less they wanted more. So who was it who got upset when I would read a lot of scripture in my message? Not the new Christians. No it was the ones who have been in their entire life. Bored? When do we get to the end so I can get to Applebee’s.

It is no different with hymn books and old songs. The lost who may have spent a few Sundays at a relative’s church or a VBS instantly connect with the old hymns. I actually had a woman who hadn’t been to church since childhood tell me our church had way to much going on. She longed for a place where they sang from a hymn book.Doesn’t she know she is the lost we did all of this for?

Do we realize that in keeping our current members from boredom we may be missing the very people we say we did it all for?