The late president John F. Kennedy once made the statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” A nation built on that mindset would be a great nation. A church built with that philosophy would also thrive.Unfortunately, many in the American church do not possess that attitude. Millions of people will be in God-honoring Bible teaching churches on Sunday, but few of the members of those churches will come prepared.
There are at least three things believers need to do to be prepared for worship. 1. They need to have a week of daily prayer and Bible study behind them as they come to worship. 2. They need guests they have invited to worship with them. 3. They need to arrive ready to give their praise to God, their tithe to God, and their act of service to the church.
Most believers come unprepared. And I am partly to blame for this. As a pastor, I have always wanted and still want people who are far from God to come to church the way I was able to come when I was far from God. I want them to come as dearly loved friends who are guests among God’s people. Guests don’t have any responsibilities other than to hear and experience the love and grace of God through the praise, prayers, and preaching of God’s people. The hope is that they will not remain as guests. The hope is they will join the family of God and begin to honor God with their lives and function within the Body of Christ.
I must do a better job of challenging Christians to make this transition because fewer and fewer are making the step from guest to host. It seems that many want the title and authority of host, but the responsibility of a guest. They want to be consumers rather than contributors.
This consumerism will kill the church. Over time the real hosts of the church will not be able to focus on the real guests of the church because they will have to care for and cover the responsibilities of the pseudo-hosts who are living like guests. The real guests will be ignored and they will not complain. They will just leave. The pseudo-hosts will consume and leave and then complain if it wasn’t precisely the way that had planned it would be. Over time discouragement will fill the church and it will slowly degenerate into a house of unhappy people. God will cry “Ichabod” and the Spirit of God will depart (1 Samuel 4:21) and the church will become a gathering of cold Christians.
If the church is to survive and thrive, the people of God must make their stand and take on their roles as servants of the King of Kings. They must be who God called them to be. 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Are you a consumer or a contributor? Do you gather with the church on Sunday morning prepared in the three ways I’ve mentioned? Are you functioning as a host or a guest of the church? Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
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