why is the world consuming the church?
by: Christian Stonehouse

It was Australia, the 1930’s. A Caucasian Government saw what they perceived to be a threat. A threat to their way of living- a threat to the white Australian way of life. This “threat” came in the form of children who were born with mixed racial blood. Half white and half Aboriginal. As the white men were working on building the largest fence in the world (stretching over 1500 miles), they would become involved with women from the native settlements in the region where they were working and subsequently father illegitimate children.

The Government believed if they took the children out of their environment and integrated them slowly into the “white” lifestyle, within 4 generations of marrying white people, the outward mark of aborigine would all but be erased from them. Obviously this plan did not really work as expected and the social scar is still being band-aided to this day.

I believe Satan has incredible skills and wisdom (Genesis 3:1), and knows the Church would not just simply swallow his arsenic-laced daiquiri He knows forceful integration simply won’t work. Ah, but what if I try something altogether different; what if I take my time and let them administer the intravenous themselves on a slow drip?

I think we may be onto something here. I think there is a cross-pollination that has stealthfully hidden just out of the church_s radar. The reason it is working is because we are the one’s administering it to ourselves. We as men have self-prescribed 60 hr. workweeks. We have self-prescribed every form of media that we can consume, so that when we’re completely exhausted from our gruelling day, the medicine cabinet is full of choice--- Hmm, what'll it be tonight? Leafs/Wings game on TSN, latest blockbuster DVD, maybe a browse on cable Internet. When we’re done with our media I.V. wouldn’t you know it, it’s too late to spend any time in God’s Word, let alone praying to Him in any sort of silence. (What is that anyways? I think it still happens at the library---until my kids show up) Well let_s back up here, “I just followed the directions on the box” you’re saying. Yes, that is true. We’re just doing what the box said: “Go to school, graduate, succeed, marry, buy a big house, succeed more, (“To be sure your our children are taken care of”), get a nice car (maybe two), stop at Timmy’s daily, (ouch-now I’m getting personal), continue to accumulate stuff, and oh yeah, go to Church and get to know God better through this whole process, and maybe even stand up for what’s right.”

Let me ask this one thing? How can we stand up for something that is unfamiliar to us? How can we stand up for God_s principles when they are not written on our hearts? We say we are too busy to write to politicians about the same sex marriage issue. We’re too busy to stand up for the lives of unborn children, don’t have enough “extra money” to help out the needy.

There was a man who did not follow the prescription on the box. He stuck up for prostitutes, mingled with society’s “outcasts”, stood up for values when no one else did. He was able to do this because He had spent the better years of His life absorbing the potent words of the God-followers who had gone before Him. He spent time daily allowing God to administer His Truth into Him.

Cross-pollination has occurred in the Church and the people in it. We have believed the writing on the box even though we’re unsure who is the author of the words on it.

We need to re-examine what it is that we are taking in on a daily basis, and discontinue what doesn’t glorify Him. After all, the world’s consumption of the Church is not happening at lightening speeds, it’s on a time-release I.V. drip.