How to Be Miserable in Your Christian Life
Chapter Three: Avoid the Institutional Church
(Section Four: Church Isn't About You, But It Probably Should Be)
Before we get to non-church options, we need to look at one more way
that local churches undermine the values of Christian misery: by insisting that
going to church isn’t just about you, your emotions, and your need to receive
some affirmation and inspiration. Now, there are a few churches out there that
are starting to shift toward making it all about you, and those churches would
probably be the least dangerous ones to get involved with—you can simply sit
back, enjoy some nice music, receive some inspiring teaching, and then go home
happy. Ironically, the ephemeral feelings of happiness that come from that kind
of service will go a lot further toward a lifestyle of misery than will the
rather more difficult practices involved in going to a normal church.
In a normal institutional church,
the point of the church service isn’t just to fill you up; rather, there’s this
odd notion that the people of God are there for God. Instead of you and your
concerns being the motivating center of the service, it is God who bizarrely
takes center stage. The worshiping congregation is there to give Him glory as
its primary function. And sometimes this even includes acts like confession of
sin, listening to teaching that convicts the heart, and submission to God’s
providence over our lives.
I know, I know: words like
confession, conviction, and submission may sound like they would tend toward
our misery, but we’ve seen this trick before. The truth is, it’s practices like
these—the ones that stretch us beyond our comfort zones, that move the focus away
from our own sovereignty over our lives—those, ironically, are the practices
that prove most threatening to Christian misery. So it’s far safer to attend
services that only focus on your good feelings, and avoid the ones that are intentionally
God-centered.
Usually, the best rule of thumb is
to ignore local churches that represent an established, institutional
denomination. Some of them even retain the dangerous old idea that Christian
services are “liturgy,” a word that literally means “the work of the people.”
Such worship “services” actually imply that it is God being served, and not me!
Well, I think you can clearly see where the danger lies. Best to avoid the
institutional church.