So the berating continues, society is disintegrating while the church sits quietly, pompously watching. Forgive me for not subscribing to this view. I for one have seen with my own eyes where the church has, and continues to changes lives and transform attitudes and I am not talking about tongue-speaking and bible-thumping... I am talking about positive change. Change that can be seen and felt! I am talking about people who had no hope but through re-socialization, education and empowerment are now positive contributors to society.
Have you ever stopped to notice that those who constantly attack the church for not doing anything (or enough) are the ones that are not associated with any church? How can you effectively comment on an organization that you know nothing about? You have no known (or unknown) affiliation with the church... are your comments based solely on hearsay or do you have you some other source of information that no-one else knows about? These are the same people that say who curse the church for its love of money...*tut, tut, tut*. But let me ask a couple of questions:
- Who is the church? Is it a building or is it the people that make it up?
- How can the church be expected to contribute if it has no resources with which to 'make the difference'?
- How do churches operate? As far as I know, they are non-profit organizations and therefore, they are dependent on the faithful few (and I do mean few) who give of their money to it.
- If the people who attend church do not pay tithes or offering, how are the bills expected to be paid?
- In fact, since the church is stuck in the four walls, when they come out for evangelism, how will they pay for the logistics of setting up say a two week crusade?
In all situations, there are extremes. I will be the first to admit that some churches overdo it. They don't care where the money comes from as long as they get it. What then happens is that their 'fat is used to fry every other church.'
To those persons who constantly beat up the church about 'not doing enough', can you remove the wool from your eyes long enough to recognize that they actually do a lot? Or, if you are convinced that the church serves no purpose, join the organization and make a change.
Realize this, if you continue to curse about the lack of action on the church's part and you sit and do nothing about it, you are just as bad as, or maybe even worse than the church itself!
Lata,
