Gods411 : Are You A Toxic Christian?

Are You A Toxic Christian?

Kim and I were out running errands a couple of days ago. While we were driving we passed a church, with a large sign on the front of it. I looked at it quickly, then I had to do a double take to actually read the sign. When I actually saw what the sign said, my heart was broken and angered at the same time. Here is what this LARGE sign said that was smack in the front of the church.

NO SKATEBOARDING

NO ROLLERBLADES

NO BICYCLES

I do now know why they did not say:

NO KIDS

NO FUN

GO AWAY

This is a subject that GOD has laid dear to my heart; Toxic Christianity & Toxic Churches. Do you know that it has been said that 8 out of 10 churches are dead or dying? How sad is that? There used to be a time that Christianity was the religion of choice. When a person wanted to search for GOD, they would have tried a Christian Church. But that is not the case today. Christianity is just a choice among many religions and gods.

We had one of our good friends prove this. Her daughter went through a shooting at a shopping mall, as you could imagine she was very shaken up. So she went searching for something....... she had a Buddhist saying tattooed on her back. The comment of her parents is that they were glad she found some god and religion. With the statement like the one above, no wonder she found accepting Buddhists.

Some of our churches have become toxic. They are so focused on them and looking inward, that they have totally missed Jesus' last command. They are more concerned with looking good, what type of music fits ME, and not accepting people that are not like them or that would fit into their church mold. What our culture is boiling down to is our Christian Churches do not carry the weight it used to, WE have to carry that weight. We have to be shinning examples of Jesus love and acceptance. Who did Jesus hang out with? The pretty, religious people? Or the lost, hurting, ugly, prostitutes?

You might be saying "What can I do"? Hopefully you are involved in a church that is carrying out Acts 29. One good gauge is to look at your baptisms, do you have them regularly? If not can you remember the last one you had? WE have to be the example of Christianity, church or no church, we need to reach out to the lost, the kids, and hurting of our culture. OK, OK, OK.... I could go on and on.

I believe that you are going to see a shift in our churches in the future. I think that you will see more mini missions going out into the people, instead of waiting for the people to come to them. One good example is a link that Donna sent me yesterday. It is Skate Disciples. A father and son mission to reach the young skateboarders. This is an awesome example of reaching out to a certain group of people that are lost and mislead, showing Christs' love and acceptance. Awesome job guys! So, where are you on the toxic meter?