If you haven’t seen the film Church People yet, please stop right now, read no further and go watch it now!
What a phenomenal movie and cast! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time! The movie is filled with a stellar cast, who will not only make you laugh but some will make you reexamine yourself and what church means to you. The movie shows how some churches have made the church into a place of entertainment where people have to be constantly entertained just to come to church rather than a place of worship.
Growing up, my grandfather was a Spanish Pentecostal Preacher of an intercity church in Cleveland, Ohio. He would go door to door offering to paint homes, cut their lawns, feed their family and the list goes on and on. He was the hands and feet of Jesus, fulfilling the calling to help others. "I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me." (Matthew 25:36)
He would put a bullhorn on the top of his car and go up and down the streets proclaiming the Good News. He would hold tent revivals where many would come. We spent so much time in church in prayer that my sister and I would go in our pajamas, do our homework, and then fall asleep on the old wooden bench in the corner of the church while the adults continue to seek the Lord in prayer. We saw people come to God, miracles take place, and lives changed. Our church was a storefront, cold in the winter from poor insulation, with plastic on the windows and cold cement for flooring. Life was so simple, but people were just hungry for God's love.
I was young, but I learned quickly what people really needed and wanted was the Gospel. They knew that the message of Christ would change their lives and they sought after it. Somewhere between the good ol' days to the present, some have lost what church is really all about. Maybe it's the need to entertain or to be entertained. Whether we are the first or the latter, we can lose sight of what’s truly important, the meaning of the Gospel itself. When we come with a heart of expectancy to worship in Spirit and in Truth… rather than to be entertained, He is always there waiting to meet with us. He wants us to leave as a different person than who we were when we arrived.
Transformed lives are the bedrock of the God’s power.
“But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 4:29)
"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." (Psalms 122:1)
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