Turn or Burn?

Clearly these signs speak of God's abiding love for mankind.

I grew up in the church. Two of my uncle's were pastors and my dad was a Christian musician, speaker, and occasional worship pastor. I've heard every message under the sun about the Son. I've grown bored and uninterested in my faith and ambivalent towards the church.

Quite frankly, the church is an institution corrupted by man that in no way resembles the Christian church that Jesus anointed Peter to. I haven't consistently gone to church for a couple years and my soul misses it. I need the fellowship, the worship, the study of scriptures. I want to know God and know Him deeply. Whatever dogmatic or doctrinal label that puts on me, I don't really know or care. I just want to feel the Spirit moving within me.

I had a revelation last night. The message at church (we go on Saturday nights) was one I've heard thousands of times. It was about the need to evangelize. The reason we need to evangelize is because if we don't tell our friends, family and neighbors about Jesus, they will go to hell. I have written before on the flawed and erroneous and often mistaught concept of hell and I won't rehash those points here but I encourage you to check out that link. This, of course, if a message one grows accustomed to hearing in church and I've just learned to accept it as par for the course and to endure it until something of value comes along.

There were two thoughts that occurred to me when I listened to that message that I wanted to briefly discuss here.

Jerry Falwell preached a narrow message, and wore a fancy suit.

The first thought was that I will not evangelize of share something I do not know or understand. I often talk about my favorite movies, poets, foods, etc because I study these things, I see their value and I understand them. I can confidently proclaim them to my friends and be confident that they will not be disappointed or led astray. I need to understand and study God and Jesus more before I can share Him/Them/It with people. I left church disappointed yesterday because I learned nothing new about God. I heard the same old, repackaged message I've heard for billions of years. By teaching this message, the pastor did nothing wrong,  but spirit was not edified.

I left discouraged. I wanted to have an encounter with God, not with the church and it;s platitudes. While it's my responsibility to study the Bible, I also wanted to learn about God from a man who's studied Him. I can be told to evangelize over and over again, but until I get a grasp on the concept of hell and a better understanding of God and Jesus, it's not going to happen. the message fell on deaf ears.
The pastor also spoke of "active evangelism." I'm not sure what this concept means but I'll tell you this, I get farther with my friends, in terms of speaking about my faith, by simply living my life and letting my love and kindness shine then I do by saying "Hey, believe in Jesus or go to hell". I find that sign waving, platitude spewing, notch on your heavenly mansion type of propaganda to be highly offensive and ineffective. I know most of my friends (most of whom would not identify as Christian) would be turned off and annoyed by this message. I refuse to do so. my friends know I'm a follower of Jesus (don't call me a Christian. That's a man made term) and what that means. Like me, they find the idea of an all loving God sending people to a tortuous hell for eternity simply for having different dogmatic beliefs to be unconscionable and contradictory.

Either way, without my own personal study of the scriptures and the supplementation of a pastoral and/or peer study, I won't evangelize. I can't evangelize what i don't fully endorse and I don't buy into the church and certainly not to man.

I like the pastor of this church. He's humble and down to earth. He is not overly eloquent and he doesn't dress fancily. He is not arrogant and is very open to questions from his congregation. I like him, but I don't buy totally into his message.

Jesus is my homeboy. God is good. God is love. God wants all to come to Him and none to perish. God is omnipotent. Is He limited to the Christian church being the only true church?