Here's the thing about Church

When I go to church on Sunday morning, I want to know that I am in church.

Life is very ordinary. God is in the ordinary. I see Him in the regular, routine, mundane things of life. He is there; truly. However, on Sunday morning, when I gather with the Body of Christ, I want to know that God transcends the ordinary; that He is magnificent, holy, and supreme over the universe. Ordinary I can get at home. When I am sitting in church on Sunday morning, I want to see God in more than just the ordinary. I want to see Him high and lifted up and above all.

I don't want to see a skit. I can get entertainment at home. I don't need to have a plethora of pithy one-liners. Hey, I can go home and put Scotch tape on the bottom of my cat's feet and be supremely entertained. I don't want a stand up comedian. I can get that on television (well, that may be a stretch, too, since most comedians these days are fairly profane in their humour). If something humorous arises in a sermon naturally, hey, I'm good with that. If it is cultivated, it's generally not nearly as funny. I have found that most people are far funnier when they try not to be.

I don't want to sit there and listen to sanctified psychology or baptized sociology. I don't care about market trends, and I don't want to hear the latest drivel from popular Christian magazines. I can go and buy an issue and read it for myself. I don't want to find the spirituality of Stephen King, and I don't want to find God in The Shack.

I definitely do not want to hear the same chorus phrase repeated seven times. I am not looking for a Christianized version of "American Idol." I want to sing about my God, not about how I "feel" about Him. I can be self-indulgent at home, thank you very much.

What I do care about is God. I care to know Him more. I care to have His word expounded to me. I long to hear about Him. I desire to have someone who has been given the gift to explain the Scriptures to me and how even after thousands of years, their truth is matchless to anything else.

The fact is that all of those things, entertainment, pop psychobabble, music and news can be undertaken by someone who is better at it. And there are those who are better at it.

Yes; I am a wet blanket. I am no fun. But I don't go to worship for our current understanding of "fun." When I go to church, I am there to offer my worship. Part of that worship is confronting God for who He is in Scripture. I need to know God more. How can I live in this sin-stained world if I don't know Him better? I don't want to know celebrities better, or hear how trends are affecting this or that. I can get that somewhere else. The job of the Church is for the edification of the believer and the joint participation of worship. I think it should stick to that.