NoelHeikkinen.com

The Church

Sep 27, 2004 Print This Post

{ MOOD: Decent | NOISE: Entourage telling me I have mail }

Thanks to Dan for this quote:

What we call �church� is too often a gathering of strangers who see the
church as yet another �helping institution� to gratify further their
individual desires. One of the reasons some church members are so
mean-spirited with their pastor, particularly when the pastor urges them to
look at God, is that they feel deceived by such pastoral invitations to look
beyond themselves. They have come to church for �strokes,� to have their
personal needs met. What we call church is often a conspiracy of cordiality.
pastors learn to pacify rather than preach to their Ananiases and Sapphiras.
we say we do it out of �love.� Usually, we do it as a means of keeping
everyone as distant from everyone else as possible. You don�t get into my
life and I will not get into yours.

-Stanley Hauerwas