Missing the Point

Warning: this is personal opinion semi-rant. It is not intended to offend, but to suggest some soul-searching. Read at your own discretion.

Have you ever finished reading/watching an article, blog post, or news clip and been completely frustrated by the realization that although everyone involved seems to have meant well, they've all completely missed the point?

I feel that way on a regular basis, most recently when I read about the debate within the Christian community on whether parents should home-school their children. The debate is understandably a passionate one, yet I cannot help but come away with the feeling that so many people get caught up in the extraneous factors and miss the blaring truth:

The modern church is failing abysmally to teach and uphold Biblical truths about building strong families.

This is not a slam on modern churches, simply a grieved observation.

I understand that the church is (as it should be) a place of love and forgiveness, but when those things do not come with the expectation, exhortation and some degree enforcement of basic Biblical behavior standards then there's really no point in bothering to have a church at all.

I'm not saying we need to judge and throw out our siblings in Christ for their human failings, but I am suggesting that some standards and integrity are in order.

(Tangent: If you can't demonstrate the humility and self-discipline to keep your own house in order then you shouldn't hold a position of authority in the church - be it worship leader, small group leader, elder, whatever. If you intentionally keep making the same bad choices because you refuse to be responsible for your actions, selfishness or wrong mindset, the church should not continue to coddle you and facilitate the behavior. Christians are called to sharpen one another (albeit in love and with discretion), but they seem to have forgotten that this invective and its corollaries does not apply only to the mentoring style situations in which it is comfortable and ego-boosting for both parties.)

It is also my observation that much of what modern churches focus on is completely extraneous and engaged in at the expense of things that would really make a difference. Think about it. Do you really need to spend huge chunks of the budget and volunteer time bringing people in for special outreach events? If you had even a tiny church focusing on the basics and building strong, stable and loving families don't you think that in and of itself would draw people in? In this day and age of broken homes and broken hearts, the safe havens of loving families are magnets for the desperate and seeking - and with your own house in order, you'll be much more prepared to help them!

Many churches are no different than the un-churched community in divorce rates, family strife, massive debt accumulation and poor decision making. Can you imagine if a church consistently taught the basics of successful families - budgeting, communication, time management, home making, personal responsibility, child rearing or Biblical decision making?

You can argue until you run out of breath about specific subjects like home-schooling, but until churches return to the basics of reverence and discipleship its all just wasted energy.