Do You Love Your Church Too Much?

I am that person.

The one, who when she loves something, shares it with the world with megaphone and swishing pom-poms, because I like exposing people to great stuff.

[Even now I must disclose…I am wild about my church.]

But if I am not careful, I can get so focused in my church world that I find myself getting caught up in ways I never intended.

The truth is this happens to us, as churched believers, all the time.

We love the community we have found – the gathering of The Church to be a church in terms that is usually understood to mean buildings and lights and sound equipment and pews or chairs and pastors or deacons or both.But in that place, we can also forget that God is doing big things everywhere. And we can fall into some hidden dangers we never went looking for.

1.Pride
It seems strange to think that children of God, all the same in His eyes, and works of God, seemingly equally ordained or established, would ever find themselves in competition. But it happens. It is this err of, “Our church is the only church that is really doing this or that,” as if we get to decide what kind of work of God is most worthy. We typically base success on numbers, which is the main way our human minds know how to place value on something, though not God’s litmus test at all. When we begin to take a natural love for our church and turn it into a high school football game-type-rivalry, we have journeyed into a place that easily gives root to pride, which is dangerous.

2. Inreach Driven vs. Outreach Focused
People have differing views of the value of having programs in the church, and I have no interest in debating that here. Regardless of our perspective on that issue, there is a universal hidden danger to avoid: when we fall so hard in love with our church community that all we can see is how to best meet our needs, we have sorely forgotten about God’s heart for us to be the church to outsiders. Yes, we should strengthen the body of Christ from within. But not to where we develop a mostly self-serve mentality.

3. Idol Worship
It doesn’t take some melted-down gold earrings-turned-calf- statue-like back in Moses and Aaron’s day to make it an idol. The truth is, we can get so caught up in our church and its buildings, leaders, friends, coffee shop and bookstore, programs, and yes, even community service, that we begin to put those things on a pedestal rather than the Who it is really about. One of the easiest things to slip into without knowing it is the idol worship of the church, itself, and it happens often.

4. Comfortableness
Maybe the most damaging thing that happens to us when we fall too deeply in love with our church is the temptation it brings to stay comfortable. It is possible, in our worship place, to find ourselves so content we become ok with never seeing any other work of God. This, in turn, robs us of the ability to strengthen our faith, see, taste, and touch the global God-workings, allowing our life to be used in other ways both stretched and blessed beyond our imagination. There’s a hidden danger that when we are so in love with our church, we may never go out and experience God anywhere else. Comfort and routine, even in our own church, can drown out our taste for God to use our life to do exceedingly more.

We can love our church with loud megaphones and swishing pom-pons, excited about where we have landed to develop community…buoyed by the work we see Him doing in our worship place. But we must remember that our highest call is to the God who cannot be contained in any denomination, organization, or building, and what He wants us each to do with our life is bigger yet, too.