Too Much Structure

I am reading a christian fiction book about the Roman coliseums with gladiators and martyrs. Everyone hated Christians, and if the leaders found out you were a Christian they would burn you at the stake in the coliseum with everyone watching and cheering during the games.

The Christians in this city met every day to teach each other. They had to sneak around and change their location constantly. They did amazing things throughout the town and were so happy to see each other everyday. They loved each other like family. It was super hard but they were grateful that they had each other and God. They didn’t have much structure in their meetings because everything was always changing. Their rabbi had been sold into slavery so they had one of their other leaders teach them, and then they taught each other everything they had learned in their own studies. The older ones teaching the younger ones.

How would we feel if one day we had no church to go to because we were being persecuted? Would we be able to pick up the pieces and do an “underground church”? Or, would we lose touch with each other and just think about ourselves? Would we be willing to put ourselves out there and just love people and be willing to be martyred for our God — the One who died and rose for us. The One who has given us eternal life. Or, would we hide in our houses and never show or tell another person about Him.

I believe we absolutely think too much about what is going to happen during our church meetings. We think too much about how we are going to do church rather than loving each other and teaching each other what God has shown us during the week. We need to let God lead the meetings and not ourselves. When church becomes too structured, we can become too focused on what we are trying to do for God rather than letting God work. It also makes it easier for people to be very shallow in their love and worship of God. Which easily leads to Christians thinking that what they do in church makes them good people. My husband has shown me over and over again in the pulpit what that looks like to worship and love God genuinely. He will come prepared with a message and before the message or even during the message if he senses God telling him to go a different direction, he will stop the entire message and restart where God tells him to. I have seen how the congregation responds to that. We all love it because we know that our Pastor is listening to God’s voice and we know that we are getting what God is wanting us to get. I’ve also been in services that my husband or another pastor was preaching where the service was so structured that there was no room for God to work. The structure was so rigid that they had to preach what was preplanned, not what God wanted them to say right then.

~SDS

Editorial Comment:

My daughter and her husband and family are on a mission at an African school for children of a neglected people group in a small village. It is a new experience for all of them; and for all of us on this side of the world that love them and miss them. Please keep them in your prayers for their safety and for the ministry to keep thriving.