The True House of God

I was having a conversation with my grandmother the other day and she got on a rant about the abuse of church property, at various functions at her church. She went on and on about how disrespectful to God it is for people to leave cigarette butts on the church grounds. She raged that “…it’s the house of God and they ‘ought to be ashamed of themselves leaving those things on the ground!” I love my grandma, but as I listened to her I had two thoughts: the first being that I can think of an entire list of defilements that have happened there that have been much worse than cigaret butts…the second being, that a church is just a building; WE are the true house of God.

Now don't get me wrong….I'm not saying that it's okay to litter and treat a church like a trashcan…but I am just saying that I am more concerned about how we treat ourselves and the other inhabitants of this planet, than I am about a building. I think that's one thing the older generations got wrong. You guys seemed more concerned with how things looked from the outside than worrying about the root of the problem. Maybe I'm wrong, but perhaps there should have been less worry about the kids resistance to Sunday school and how bad it looked and more concern about why the kid was so resistant to it to begin with.

And I'm not going to leave the newer generations out on this either. I think sometimes we get a little caught up in making our churches look pretty from the outside. I understand wanting to make things look nice and appealing in order to draw people in, but let's not forget to be concerned with what's going on inside those walls alongside of what's going on them.

 I went through a stage where I didn’t want to be in church…but I don't remember ever being asked why I didn't want to go anymore. I had my reasons, and honestly I think they were damn good…but no one asked, so I didn't tell. Instead, I focused on being a good little girl and keeping everyone else happy. I can't help but wonder if things would have been different if someone had asked.

With all of that said church should be an enjoyable experience. If you constantly leave church in a bad mood, then something isn't right. But just because something isn't right doesn't mean that, that something wrong is the church…the problem could be you. Perhaps the problem could be inside the true house of God and not in the building you attend every Sunday. What I'm getting at here is that we need to be more worried about the house of God inside us before we start trying to decorate the literal walls we worship in.

Love, Randi