Fake Christians
You see them all the time. You talk to them. You might even be one of them.
They are rampant in churches. You walk into church and you are greeted by them. “Good morning, how are you?” and then they turn to the next person to talk to them. You could say to them “Well, I sacrificed a small child to the great satan this morning before pillaging the neighborhood and raping the women.” They wouldn’t know the difference because they have moved onto the next conversation. If they did realize you responded, they wouldn’t know what you said and would respond “Praise God! Well, it’s a blessing to have you here.”
Then the worship service starts and they sit and stare blankly at the pastor or whoever is making the announcements as if they care but in their minds you can just tell they are going “let’s get on with it already, there’s a game on in a little bit”.
Then comes worship time, this laughable part of the service (I say laughable because shouldn’t we be worshipping all the time? Also, this part looks so far from worship it’s pitiful.) reveals the people looking like robots, staring at the words and mouthing in unison while their eyes and posture suggest their brain is completely checked out. They are on vacation baby and loving it!
Offertory time! Oh boy! The bible instructs us to be cheerful givers and the word used really translates to hilarious. We’re supposed to be hilarious givers. Yeah, I don’t really see any happy looks on the faces of these “Christians” as they reluctantly drop their offering in the plate. What if you only get paid once every two weeks or even once a month? I’ve been in that predicament too. If you don’t happen to drop money in the plate on the weeks you don’t get paid, and pass the plate on by, then you get the courteous “I’m not judging you, but I’m judging you” look.
Then the sermon comes. Quick gut check: how many Christians do you think could tell you what the pastor preached on and what was the point of the sermon last Sunday if you asked them right now? Again blank faces, wandering minds, and sometimes even the pastor looks bored.
Uh-oh. The pastor is being moved by the spirit and now the sermon is starting to go over. Take a look around and count the people looking at their watches. You’d be surprised. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’re a time-keeper yourself.
Finally! The sermon is over and now it’s time for the invitation. Oh no! The pastor wants us to sing another verse. This is terrible. Now the game is going to start without me for sure. If you have ever felt that way, maybe you should check your commitment to God.
Great! We’ve been to church, heard the message, praised God in song for a little while, and we even gave Him some money. Aren’t we awesome Christians? We made all the check marks. Now we can leave and get in our little cliques to talk trash about the other people at church and how lousy our pastor is and how the worship team just didn’t have it together and the songs were terrible. We don’t need to invite anyone to church or talk to anyone about God through the week because we’re superchristians that are dedicated to our Sunday more than anyone we know. We show up in our neatly pressed slacks and sportcoats with tasteful ties, and modest dresses with carefully selected blouses and endure the Sunday service, so why should we have to talk to anyone about church or God. —Gut check #2: When is the last time you invited someone to church? When is the last time you talked to someone about God? Now, by contrast, when is the last time you invited someone to go shopping or out drinking (oops I forgot, a Christian would never admit to drinking. It looks bad.), or to a movie or any other various thing not related to God?
Christians! It’s time to wake up! It’s not about us, it’s about God!
Why do people have such negative opinions about Christians and latch on to anything that makes sense as “evidence” against Christianity? These very things are the reason. If this is Christianity, who wants it?
We are supposed to live in Christ but that doesn’t mean that He is an old house that is a fixer upper. We shouldn’t treat Him like that house. We do it though. We move in, take ownership, paint the walls, hang some pictures, and make the house a reflection of us. We do the same thing to God and His church. We come in, make the music about what WE like, make the outreach happen the way WE want it to happen, work on OUR schedule and make God who WE want him to be: a genie in a bottle whose lamp we rub to get what WE want and that is His only purpose to us. GOD IS NOT MADE IN THE IMAGE OF US, WE ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD! The house shouldn’t reflect us in this case, we should reflect the house personality.
Are you feeling beat down yet? If so, good. That’s how we ought to feel for letting this kind of ambiguity about our faith to creep into our walk. We ought to be ashamed for putting God in a box and letting Him out only when we need him. Shaping God to look the way WE want him to look.
Thoughts?
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Tags: Christianity, Christians, church, church relevance, faith, Fake Christians, family, God, Real Christianity, Real Church, religion, Worship, Worship Material, Worship Music, Worship Resources, Worship Songs
Hey hey,
I’ve been in every Christian denomination and seen all styles of worship etc. last thing I do anymore is look around at what everyone else is doing or not doing. Every single church has the selfish and the serving. It takes all my energy to focus on the fruits of the Spirit being manifested in moi, me myself and making sure when it comes to judgement of character I’m looking in the mirror and not the congregation.
Yes western christians are going to be sleepy, passive and distant. We’re comfortable and our faith is like our Costcos. Very accessable, lots of selection and so bulky in programs, spiritual food and activity we’re obese and anorexic in faith at the same time. There is no balance here. Only you find your balance with Jesus himself and stop judging your brothers and sisters in Christ. Some can appear dead on the outside and have heart of gold. Others are surely ‘on fire’ and a white washed tomb. Stop focusing on what the church isn’t doing and go find a church that IS doing becasue they DO exist. Afraid the only way you’re going to have the church you want is if you become a missionary where Christianity is outlawed and you have to practice underground. That sifts the wheat from the chaffe real quick. I still believe in the power of gathering in the same purpose. To Worship Christ, even with the half hearted and spiritual dead. If there is only a few there for Him He is there. The folks that irritate me the most are the ones ‘looking around to see whose looking at their watch’. Go to Iraq and help the underground church if you want radical expression.
Not because Christianity is outlawed there it’s just real hard to practice amongst Muslim tribalism.
Otherwise leave the ’spoiled’ children of God to Him, He Will take care of it.
Thank you for your observation Kaylenwray. I am not, however, judging the church. Rather, I am attempting a call to action.
As Christians, we are to hold one another accountable for our actions (and inactions). What do you think is the purpose for fellowship? If you are doing what you should in your walk you should feel tired and one of the big purposes of gathering is not to look good but to be refreshed and renewed.
I think the reason people are bored is that they are like the gas tank on your car in a manner of speaking. They have heard the word and maybe even spent time with God, but they aren’t emptying their tanks as we ought to do. We should be using that fuel. Otherwise you can’t put fuel in a full tank. We have information constipation. Too much knowledge and a lack of use.
I hope this helps.
Hey, GREAT post, and wonderful insight.
Very similar to something I wrote too . . .
Far too many self-professed “Christians” act as if God were dead! Why else would they proclaim that the Bible, and ONLY the Bible, is the word of God? Do they really think God spoke to man 2000 years ago, but not today? Could it be that mankind has not advanced at all spiritually in those 2000 years, and therefore God is either dead or chooses no longer to speak to us!?? I find that hard to believe.
What is it about the Bible that makes it sacred? For me, the answer is that when you read it, the words, the concepts, the communication seems to resonate with something inside of you that tells you – “Whoa, this is good stuff!” That resonance verifies the idea that a part of God is inside you and recognizes that this is a divine communication.
I think, in fact, God continues to speak with us, both personally and by means of mass-communication methods. Personally by way of the still, small voice, dreams, answered prayers, spiritual promptings, and most of all that resonance, that recognition of truth when you hear it or read it. By mass communication in such media as inspired books, lectures, and social movements. For me personally, the most fascinating modern spiritual communications come from reports of near-death experiences and popular spiritual books, such as the Conversations With God series, or A Course in Miracles. Yet many Christian have never heard of these modern works. Worse yet, some even ridicule the books as anti-Christian. Amazing!
For the curious, here are some references:
Near-death experiences – http://www.nderf.org; and http://www.iands.org.
A Course in Miracles – http://www.acim.org/; and http://courseinmiracles.com/
Enjoy!
I hear what your saying
If you want action go to the social outreach litergical churches. I love them I also love the holy rollers who don’t deny the power of God and get slain in the Spirit every week. Thing is we need both! The church your talking about is the fundemental dead church. They don’t have the vision for community outreach and deny the power of God. Yeah I do hear you but I think you’re talking about a particular church. Also remember it’s the preaching as well. So much of the preaching is based in ‘positive’ thinking and good things God wants for you. When I hear that I keep thinking how our forefathers were sacrificed and how our brothers and sisters around the world literally die for their faith. It is our culteral. It’s really hard to die to the flesh when there is so much to feed it, especially in the church. Listening to a certain Houston tele-pastor sometimes scares me. He seems like the sweetest most well intentioned godly man on the planet. He just ‘expects’ good things from God and all he gets are ‘good’ things. And it seems to be related to prosperous church, solid marriage, good finances and the knowledge God is with him ever step of the way. And much of his preaching is putting down the ’something bad is going to happen’ thinkers. Well, that’s not even the point! Something bad IS going to happen. It isn’t about what we perceive as negative and positve thinking or what is even good or bad. We’re the least qualified to judge either. All we know is to cling to the One who IS good and anything that happens to our flesh good or bad is waste, but not in vain if we are in Christ.
I went to an Episcopal church for a number of years. Talk about your bad reputations! And the repetative literagy….Paaleeez! The most loving, community oriented, fidelity seeking congregation I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. What a concept! To actually DO something Christ asked us to do. I also had a recent divine appointment with a realtor I picked out of the paper. We were just randomly talking and it came around to our faith and she mentioned she went to a prophetic church and I commented that I missed the prophetic. Well this isn’t your normal conversation! God is still moving in this laxidazical country. And in my laxidazical(sp?) heart. Honestly, we’re both saying the same thing, I guess I just have problems with ‘examples’ of people or situations because I’ve know those people and they’d still give you the shirt off their back or buy you lunch if you needed it and were one on one with them. My theory is it’s the over stimulation of our mega churches that make people robots and zombies. There’s just too many of us with too many needs and we short circuit. I think the one on one is where ministry really happens and worship services are an insecurity fest of judgemental attitudes and paranoid assumptions. Unless of course we simple close our eyes and clumsily, persistantly seek His face.
Kaylenwray, I’ll agree with you on most of that. I’m not just talking about one particular church. I’ve been to a lot of churches like this.
I do feel the need to make a clarification though. I don’t mean ALL our churches in this country. There are some phenomenal churches. I’ll save all the really cool stuff about it for now, as I am getting ready to do a post on this particular church, but the best church I have found is Lifechurch.tv (which technically is a megachurch, it’s just broken into multiple locations).
Oh man, I miss going there. Talk about a God-driven, outreach/missions minded group of happy genuine people.
I think you’re correct in saying that we are saying pretty much the same thing. I would like to make a point in saying, though, that if we don’t reach out to the “fundamental dead” bunch and wake them up, odds are, there going to stay that way. Yes, God can do whatever He wants, but He likes to work through people and if we all just shrug our shoulders and say “I’m not concerned about those people, God will deal with them” we may have just shrugged off an oppportunity presented to us by God. You seem to be a missions minded person, so my next question seems appropriate. You wouldn’t look at someone who you just found out is lost and just shrug it off and go “God will deal with them, I don’t need to talk to them.” would you?
If we are obedient to God we are supposed to admonish one another in love, not just stroke each others egos. Like you said, we don’t need a constantly warm-fuzzy church, we need a church that is willing to tell the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Sorry about the poor grammar and spelling issues in my last post, I just noticed a couple of things after re-reading it.
christianliberal, thank you for your comment. For some reason, it wound up in my spam and I just found it and de-spammed it. Sorry for the delayed approval
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God will visit and inhabit who He choses. I guess what I get tired of in myself and in other christians is their perpuetual obsession with ’saving’ people when God said salvation is His. God ultimately ’saves’ people. I’m talking about the obsession that keeps the focus away from themselves in a negative way. They don’t have to deal with their own insensitivities or deplorable lack of evidence of the Fruits in their life. They can just keep praying and admonishing the other guy and never look at their own lack of love and prideful heart. I believe if I truly was displaying the fruits of the Spirit (that evade me all too often) I wouldn’t need a reason to open my mouth to anyone accept to answer direct questions about why I seem to be so at peace all the time with the unimaginable stress that I have to deal with. That’s where I want to be. I feel a hypocrite even opening my mouth to admonish or offer salvation to anyone if I can’t first be like Christ to that person.
Just the wording in your original blog struck a cord about ‘looking’ around to see who is really worshiping and who isn’t or something to that effect. ‘looking at their watches’. I can sit in a three hour service if the Lord is present and I don’t have an urgent engagement. But I also can get real tired of over-load and the need to get away from a gathering of imperfect humans that seem to be ‘out holying’ one another. Blogging like e-mail can be one dimensional and I ofen find myself judging phrases etc when of course we can’t hear intonation or know someone’s heart. that’s all. for me there is no perfect church and I find I always need a couple different expressions for fear of imbalance. I’ve been to many churches also, once through full time ministry for 5 years . I find when I was at my best is when someone affirmed and believed the best about me. Is it kind of an image of beating the devil out of people or pulling the Christ to the forefront? It’s probably both and probably all in vain unless the Spirit goes before us. lol
I have been horribly judged in church but can’t stay away for some reason…..hmmmm….
but I do wane and it isn’t every Sunday as it used to be or should be. Mostly due to a recent move and getting settled and other things but that’s not part of this subject.
I think Christianity like a country has a primary language and then there are dialects of Christianese. If you don’t speak that churches particular dialect of Christianese then you are either completely ignorant or an over-thinker and too much in your head and need to repent for the education you received. It really is kind of a joke. I think our God has a tremendous sense of humour and how we can still go back Sunday after Sunday or every other Sunday and have our commitment and motivation questioned. I hope He finds my heart pure. Cause my flesh can sure be darn ornery! lol
Blessings to you.
Kaylenwray, you certainly do make some long comments don’t you? I’m just kidding with you.
I understand where you’re coming from. I certainly am not trying to encourage the looking around behavior and most definitely do not spend my time doing that. I have just been in positions where sometimes it’s hard not to notice that (such as being at one church where the choir does not leave the loft until the end of service, there’s not a whole lot of place to look besides the back of the pastor’s head so you notice more things).
Also, if you have children, they will distract you from time to time and when you look over at them, simply through peripheral vision you will notice things. You see what I’m saying? I have just noticed things. I don’t go around watching people or judging them for their actions.
We are, as I stated before, according to the bible supposed to admonish one another in love. That doesn’t mean make sure you are good and then admonish (yes I know the stick in your eye and the plank in mine, but don’t confuse the two the second is judgement the first is not). If I am doing something I shouldn’t or not doing something I should, I would certainly hope someone would tell me! Sometimes we don’t realize the things we are or are not doing, we are just living our routines. I know I do it, and I’m human, so I can’t be the only one.
You are also correct in saying that we need encouragement, but don’t forget admonishment is part of that. Admonishment is not (and picture this in the worst southern drawl you can imagine) “What do you mean you had a beer last night? Repent you sinner or you’re goin’ ta hell!” Admonishment is more along the lines of “I understand raising children is difficult, but what does the bible say about this situation? Could you have handled it better? And don’t worry, we’re here to help in any way we can.”
Point people to the truth, don’t condemn them for their actions. I hope that my post didn’t seem to imply that I was trying to do the latter. It was done to get the attention of the “lazy laymen” and provoke them to action. I assumed I’d get some judgemental responses because we’re human and we have a tendency to go on the offensive when we feel our integrity has been challenged.
I’m glad you’re starting to see where I was headed though and thank you so much for your kind words, they are an encouragement.
Blessings to you too!
Churches DO have A LOT of problems and many of these problems are actually quite destructive….I’ve seen Christians twisting the Bible teachings, focusing on the Old Testament and God’s anger and wrath and hell which puts fear in people’s heart. And the Fellowships? I can say 99.9% of them gather to talk about the Bible only at church. Once the Fellowship meeting is over, they go out to movies/shopping/dinning out/drinking/singing karaoke/Wii parties and all sorts of activities that has absolutely nothing to do with God, and they do it quite often. The church I go to is exactly like that. But that’s not all…there is just too much politics/power struggles/judging/gossips/factions going on. And several of the people in the Fellowships are extreme control freaks that non-stop poking into other people’s lives. And if you do not go along with what they do, they start spreading rumors about you and no one would care if you do not show up one Sunday or miss their “Fellowship” meeting.
Before you go on saying I am just judging too…answer these questions first:
What is a “Fellowship”? What are its functions? Whom does the Fellowship belong to?
I’ve prayed for them for over a year before I went on sharing with the Fellowship about what a Fellowship really is…as it belongs to God. I did it without using any offending phrase and I said it out of love and pure intention, to see them really grow and bear fruits. But I was soon judged and their argument was that Christians need to bond and do things together in order to build unity. I said that we should build our relationship with God first, learn to love and obey Him otherwise our relationship with people will always be weak, unguarded and will end up damaging. I was then judged again. Then, a lot of bad rumors against me start floating around. Two more years passed, they still do the exact same things. A few brothers and sisters that used to go there all left because they told me that they feel they can’t grow spiritually there at all. Three sisters and 2 brothers that actually went there for a sole purpose – to pursue God.
I have a question ! Why in my life – events happen days weeks or hours , happen after I think it ? Im a christian but can’t understand why . God trying to say I have a gift ? Or is God trying to show me evidence of his power ?
I too have found lots of problems within churches. I have been to many. I have learned that you will never find a perfect church, Christian, or human being here on Earth. Only God is perfect. We must remember to keep our focus on God and not the imperfections of the brothers, sisters, pastors etc. We must keep in mind that Christians are merely “sinners saved by grace”, they are not perfect. Of course, they should strive to be, but only the Holy Spirit can change us from within. Remember that it takes time for a conversion of heart and a renewing of the mind. These are things we strive for, but do not judge one another. Just make sure that your walk is right before God and pray for those within the church who need conversion. I happen to go to a very spirit filled church where the music is jumping and the pastor gets the congregation all fired-up. I don’t agree with his persuasion tithing message: Micah 3:8-10 every Wednesday and Sunday, but I like the fact that they reach out to many lost souls–something that alot of churches don’t do. They go out into the worst neighborhoods and witness to the lost, homeless, prostitutes, drug dealers, addicts. I mean, these people are radical, but even so, there are many who have not yet had a conversion. You find that everywhere. When it comes down to it, the only thing we can worry about or control is our OWN walk, not everybody elses.
Fake Christians, irritate me and I knew alot in christian boarding school, which kept me from wanting to be one, until God himself showed me who He truly is. I looked back over the years and realized that He had been with me through all the turmoil in my young life, even though I rejected Him after going down to the altar. No one bothered to disciple me or helped to unravel my grave clothes as we are told to do by Jesus himself. I went YEARS BEFORE I RECIEVED THE HOLY SPIRIT and that didnt happen until I dealt with all the unforgiveness left in my heart. All I got was judgement because I enjoyed wearing jeans, and playing music on my guitar, so church was not something I enjoyed at all. Once born again I had a huge desire for discipleship and joined Evangelism Explosion to learn to share the faith God had given me. I realized he loved me regardless of what I wore or where I’d been. The church never did. Seems it’s all about image, but the image fakes display is what keeps people from coming to the real Jesus. We should be ashamed to claim we know Him when we refuse to love others. But, instead we just go about our little games like God’s not even watching. I met Him in my bed room, with no one else around after two very unexplainable near death experiences that made me realize He never left me or forsook me. Once I started going to church I found that nothing was different from before. It was very dissapointing to find that very few of the “Christians” there actually knew Him. They hated my joy that for the first time in my life I’d found. But that just catapulted me into standing stronger with passion for Him. Regardless of the cynicism..why do people go to church if they dont even believe what God says? The boarding school left the Holy Spirit out of the equation and even went as far as to take Acts out of the Bible! But boy could they judge! It’s taken years to learn that God really does love me! He loves you too, in case you were wondering. Lets not fake it till we make it, lets love Jesus and one another just as we are, and do take the time to unravel, in truth, with love, the grave clothes on a newly born again child of God who wants to grow. Cant set free someone who claims to have no imperfection, but oh what love and time can do for an honest heart. Uh-oh….Im preachin’ again.
Hey I have a confession i don’t know what I’m about to say is just to have a clear conscious of all my wrong doing or to just justify my actions.I have been raised in a christian home all my life and seen what a real christian lifestyle suppose to be but yet I just did not consider how important of living a holy lifestyle truly is. I thought i have been getting closer to God but the closer i get the more i realize that the quicker i fall. Just a couple of weeks ago my church had a revival and yea i was one of those christian singing alone, crying, carrying the bible in one hands while waving the other.I honestly believed that I was on my way to a pure and holy life when one day i get a call from a boy and he ask me if he can see me and like any hopeless girl i said yes although we may never keep our half of the bargain Jesus still does. I wanted this guy for the longest and now he asking me to hang out i was trilled but when he started to touch me and climb on me this is not what i wanted to happen suddenly a knock from a door just stop everything and there i was in the bathroom looking at the mirror like you weak little girl only if God wasn’t here you would have been so far in the sin.But God always have a way of showing you out of a sin, its up to us to actually take advantage of it. SO i Repent of my sins and was like this is the last time i will ever do anything to hurt God. The following week my friend ask me to go to a birthday weekend trip and yea neither of my friends are what you would say are “Christians” so i told my self i will go but i will try to act like a christian at all time to try to be the light for my friends yea yea yea that didn’t work out i was probably the worst one at that party yep i think i was…AND now Im just thinking to myself that I am not as strong as I thought I was I am WEAK, CONFUSED,AND YEA A FAKE CHRISTIAN!
The moral of the story is that i will Probably never be the Perfect Christian but as i grow up and see what my flaws are and how many imperfection i really have i don’t want to just say “O well everyone makes mistakes” I want to say lord minimize my mistakes and make me whole and holy so i can live CHRIST LIKE life lord i may never be you or what i think you want me to be but i do want to be what you have me destine to be and if thats someone greeting people by the door of an church let it be to glorify you Jesus pleas forgive me and let me just get away from all this let me say your name and just worship you in and out of church near and away from my friends Lord I may never have the right intentions but let me please have the right heart and change my motive cause I have been trying to live this christian like the way i design it when I was suppose to make you take control I am officially through trying to be a christian Lord take control i can’t fake any longer….
I say Amen to this. I no longer attend a “church” building. I’m tired of the hypocrisy. Also, you can volunteer until your face falls off, but when you need any help, there is noone who cares. You dont even get a phone call or hospital visit to make sure you are still alive after surgury. But they sure want you when they need money, that is all they seem to really care about. And the cliques, let’s not get started on that.