State of the Church

What happened to the days when the Church acted like the life-changing entity she was created to be? A time when the people who call themselves followers of Christ felt an urgency to affect the climate of their culture around them spiritually. A time when they weren't so busy caught up in what has come to be known as the everyday-ness of life...like going to work and paying the bills are the purpose of our lives. Don't get me wrong, we need to work and we have to pay the bills. But we have made it so those things have become almost the whole focus of how we live our lives. The mission of Christ, our mission as a Church, gets relegated to something we do on the weekends and usually involves coming to a building once a week on Sunday and maybe a small group during the week. In short, the Church is just too busy to be the Church!
Somehow I think Jesus had another idea. I envision in my mind a day, not even that long ago comparatively, where if you were a follower of Christ, your whole purpose in life changed and the people in the Church became a spiritual force that brought transformation to people's lives. A time when people would come together corporately and pray down heaven in their community. A time when the business of the kingdom WAS their business in everyday life, even as they went to work each day. But nobody filled their lives with cable TV, iPods, internet, political talk radio, or Xbox. And hey, I'm one who enjoys getting online throughout the day. So in a very real sense, I'm preaching to myself here.
Somehow though, the Church in the West generally and the Church in America specifically thinks that getting involved in politics is the answer to changing our culture. And we have become so caught up in the world's systems that we have become impotent to affect anyone's lives. Whatever happened to getting together to get down on our knees to do battle in the heavenlies for our culture? Whatever happened to our dependence upon God to change the hearts of the ungodly? Whatever happened to crying out in desperation for an outpouring of God's Spirit in our day which is the ONLY way we will ever see any kind of lasting change?
I fear the hearts of the Western Church has grown hard and its love for Jesus has grown lukewarm. We have a fiery passion for right doctrine, but we are often times aloof when it comes to desiring a genuine encounter with God. We want to see ungodliness eradicated from our laws, but we fail to see that the laws only reflect the heart and desire of the people and WE, the Church, are guilty for standing idly by and watching while those people's hearts are held captive by the deception of the enemy, Satan.
And yet it is in places like China where the Church has been forced underground because of intense persecution that its members see the greatest amount of fruit with people coming to Christ in large numbers. It's because they are desperate! They have nothing but Jesus! So they call upon His name and depend on His power to do what they are unable to do. They feel the urgency! They feel God's passion for the lost and they know how to do battle in prayer to see God's kingdom established in their midst!
When will the Western Church wake up? What will it take to arouse us out of our slumber so that we quit depending on our little church programs and political action committees and milk-toast Sunday services that are filled with fine entertainment and good speaking? When will we tire of being fed good teaching but never use the teaching in our world? When will we get hungry for the Holy Spirit to move in power once again in our meetings and in our communities? When will we recognize our own lack of love for Jesus that is plainly displayed in the absence of our works? Were we not called to be a people of good works? Were we not called to be a people who turn the world upside down as the demonstration of the power of God is displayed through us? Were we not called to become filled with the Spirit and then go out and be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world (i.e. our own home town, our own state, our own nation, and then reaching the nations)?
Wake up Church! Come alive with passion for Jesus once again! Come together and pray! Go into your prayer closets and pray! Arise and do battle in the heavenlies! This is our purpose! This is our calling! This is our mission!