Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Church

I've been thinking a lot lately about our churches.  In various books I've read, one of the few reoccurring themes is that of racism/segregation of our churches.  Granted that some areas of this country have less diversity than others, it is still embarrassing.  To those on the outside, whether it be because they believe different or do not believe at all, they see the segregation that exists in our church.  Go into most any Protestant church and what do you see, mostly all whites.  Now go down the road, the street, down a couple of blocks and here you will find the "all-black" church(es).  In some areas you can find the Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, etc. churches.  If we cannot put aside our differences and come together to fellowship, worship and praise Christ, what do we think is going to happen when we get to heaven?  Heaven won't be broken up into sections where the whites hang out, the blacks hang out, the asians hang out, etc.  We will all be bunched up together, finally as one, just like He desires and wants.  I've read too many quotes from non-Christians and heard too many people outside the church who wonder how a group of people can claim to be followers of Christ, talk about His love and wanting to show it to others yet wonder why we can't even gather together with people who are of a different culture and skin color.  And if we can't do this, how on earth can we ever truly be the Church we talk about being and truly show Christ's love?  I wonder this.  I think the first step to take is in doing away with denominations.  But this will never happen here on earth because there are too many of us forgiven sinners who still push for our own ideas for church and push God's ideas aside all due to our comfort zone.  I'd love to meet with Christians in a setting where it is a vast mixture of races and ethnicities, coming together with all their culture and differences to worship and praise God in our time together.