Following The Church Or Following Jesus?

CHRISTIANITY OR CHRIST?

By David-Ari Fournier

For the last 2,000 years, a new religion has spawned out of the sect of Judaism known as “The Followers of The Way”. The Leader of the sect, known to millions as “Jesus of Nazareth”, has been greatly minimized and removed from His historical origins. Join me on this journey as we read some of the concepts that differ greatly from what Jesus started in the early beginnings of what soon becomes a religion of over 2 billion adherents.

It’s 9:00am on a Sunday morning. Worshippers from all 50 states begin their morning ascent to the House of God. They will sing, pray, listen and learn. Then, right around the crack of 12:00pm, they will return to their regularly scheduled programs. It’s Sunday and its time to be kind to God. “Men build ministries, ministries build movements, movements build machinery, machinery builds monuments and monuments become mausoleums”. When I first heard this quote, I found myself offended by its lack of respect. This statement cannot be true in all cases, so I quickly dismissed it and went on with my life. But, like most things, I found myself returning to it time and time again. Deep in my soul I found myself longing for a closer and more defined relationship with God. But I was struggling to find that relationship in the church. I have known for a long time that I have issues and questions that have gone unaddressed. They have been unaddressed not because I asked and they were refused to be considered, but because my own fear and shame. I was concerned because it seemed like I did not have the same level of security that my fellow brothers in the faith always demonstrated. If I asked these questions, if I pressed the matter, would I be considered “less of a Christian”? Questions like, “Did Jesus come to earth to establish the religion we now know as Christianity”? “If Jesus was to attend our services, would He recognize our practices to be the ones He dictated some 2,000 years ago”? Are we practicing Christianity or Christ-likeness? Is there a difference? It is my hope to entertain some thought-provoking ideas on the next pages of text. I ask you to look deeply at what I am discussing in the pages ahead. As you journey with me through the challenges I have faced that have led me to this writing, it is my hope and prayer that regardless of how you feel about what I write here, you can allow yourself to be challenged and motivated to look deeply into your own walk. But of you see shadows of your own walk with Jesus, your church or challenges in your faith, cheer up. You are not alone. Like the X-files told us, “The Truth is out There”. We must be willing to struggle with it in order to find it. The point to the salvation plan of God has to be restoration. God did not develop His plan of salvation just to start a wrecking yard. Restoration is central to the Biblical model and the Gospel message. We know from Scriptures that God has designed and purposed to return us to our original intent, which is open and communal fellowship with Him. Without a doubt, the future coming world will be a return to the Garden of Eden. It seems that Christianity has developed the ability (or, have we?) to salvage, but we seem to care little for true restoration. I say true restoration, because we do make

an effort to look saved. I compare this to a raging fire that consumes thousands of acres of land. Christianity will quickly work to get the fire out. And, praise God, thousands of acres are saved. But the damage remains untouched. The land becomes non-usable. It can even become dangerous, susceptible to flash floods and other tragedies. I have met countless numbers of clients, Christians and non-believers that are chained to their past, with daily reminders of past failures, false accusations and horrible events that follow them with the same impact today as when they originally happened. For Christians, it seems that we would be free from these events. But unless the aim of our Christian walk is not just regeneration but restoration, we will fall terribly short of the mark. Today’s version of saving faith is very different than the saving faith that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels. Many people have faith in many things, but saving faith is what is needed. The Church, moving its evangelism efforts inside the Church instead of outside in the marketplace where they belong, causes the misrepresentation. Salvation is not cheap or easy. Statements like, “Just a simple faith in Christ” or “Just believe” fall way short of the true message of Jesus. The most important thing that we must consider at this point is that there is a price. He paid the price for our entrance. Now we must count the cost. Salvation includes faith, but confession, repentance; covenant obedience and a lifestyle bearing the fruit of repentance are also proof of the change. It leads us all to our own place on the cross. And, in time, to a forward position in the battle right along side our Author and Finisher, Jesus. I offer this curious yet poignant illustration. Let’s consider… Everyone in country A is hungry. There is just not enough food to go around. Country B is a hundred miles away. They have more than enough food. To get from country A to country B a person has to walk the hundred miles. The problem with the hundred miles is that country C and country D are at war. So, as you walk the hundred miles, bullets are flying left to right and right to leave. A company starts selling bulletproof suits. It’s a great idea and people start walking the hundred miles to the feast that awaits them. As the company works to increase profits over the years, they begin to cut costs. They start using cheaper materials. They started with suits made of lead, but have worked their way down to a nice looking plastic suit. Profits are up. The company is adding employees and profit; measurements that they have been told truly identify success. People are entrusting their lives to the new plastic suits. Now, because of the war, there are no phone lines. No one calls from country B to say they made the trip safely. The people in country A are entrusting their lives to what the company is telling them. These people are dying as they try to get to the

land of promise, because they trust in a false salvation that someone else has handed them. The problem is it is so much easier to sit back and trust what someone tells us, than to have to go study these things out for ourselves. The two strangest phenomenon’s in the religious world are the amazing amounts of “experts” on matters of the faith and how quickly they became experts, coupled with most church-going Christian’s ability to just accept or believe whatever they are told. All too often our Christian walk is as if we have gone straight back to Egypt, but we pretend that we are living smack dab in the middle of the Promised Land. The difference is that Egypt is a picture of our lives in sin and the Promised Land serves as a picture of us walking in full relationship with God. On the night of the Passover, Egypt and Israel were immediately aware that what God was doing would become a life or death decision for both these nations. When we view our salvation as a life or death decision and that every moment of our life is ordered by the Lord and could end today, it is not as difficult to take giant steps. Deciding to leave behind our trust of self, and the pleasures of this present world, to follow a King that we do not see with human eyes, is not an easy thing. It will take more than a simple faith. It will take a saving faith. But what is the message of the Church? The concept of a cheap salvation without the fruit of repentance, or covenant obedience, was developed by men with a desire to fill buildings. Man desires to fill buildings. But always remember, Jesus desires to empty them. “Go ye into the entire world, and preach the gospel to every creature”. The idea of the post-modern church availing itself to reaching the “seekers” by down playing the rich spiritual and scriptural practices of the faith gives further evidence of a lack of commitment to Biblical models of growth. It has been said that most churches are a mile wide and one inch thick. We are observing an alarming trend of changing of music, dress and reverence in the House of God to make it more palatable. But the Bible makes no mention of softening the message of the Gospel or playing to unbelievers. Unbelievers are to be reached in the communities where they live, by Christians living out their restoration stories right in from of them. If Noah had listened to Rick Warren and had followed the “Purpose Driven Ark” curriculum, there is no doubt the Ark would have carried more than eight people into the deluge. The problem here is that the Flood was about attitude and not attendance, misbehavior and not membership. God called the world into a righteous lifestyle and Noah preached righteousness, but they failed to respond. And as seen earlier, their response was a life and death decision.

I am sure Rick Warren is a great man of God. I have met several members of his congregation and they speak very fondly of him. I have read both Purpose Driven Church and Purpose Driven Life. Both offered key insights into church and personal growth. Where I differ is on the purpose he suggests the church should fulfill. There is no doubt that Rick Warren has captured the heart of the emerging church culture and has written these ideas and concepts into a well-written book. But the model he presents is completely inconsistent with the Biblical model. Putting our Pastor into jeans and a T-shirt, playing worship music in every known music genre possible, flashy media presentations and low-impact Gospel (just a simple faith in Jesus) with an available C/D after service is not what the Apostle Paul wrote about. The confusion appears to be the misunderstanding of the purpose of the Church and the mission of the Church. Don’t be surprised to find out these are two separate works. The Scripturally based purpose of the Church is the growth, maturity and development of believers for the work of the ministry. This development is to be accomplished through local assemblies; training and building believers to impact the community there are surrounded by. I personally believe that these assemblies of believers should be completely free from any conference, denomination or outside governing bodies. Believers are to be built up in their knowledge and practice of Godly values, to be trained in marriage and parenting, to develop a deep understanding of God and to struggle with their faith and it’s application to their everyday life. When the Church is working hard at making their respective body healthy, they are beginning to prepare themselves for their mission work. The landscape must be healthy, well maintained and thriving. As the non-believing world sees the health and vitality of the Church’s landscape, it will create dialogue, which I believe is the beginning of the discipleship process. The mission of the Church is to reach their community. By reaching out, I mean they are committed to living a lifestyle and faith practice that brings glory to God. This is a practice that needs to take place outside the walls of the Church. Where the mission has been compromised is in two specific areas. First, we are struggling to be the kind of salt that creates a thirst for God in our communities. Often, the testimony of God is simply stained by the condition of the lives we live. Being salt means being different and maintaining the elements that make us salty. We can’t salt-producers trying to sweeten the message that makes us salty in the first place. Secondly, we have compromised the mission by turning it into leader-led events/programs. There is nothing wrong with crusades, programs and events. But

when they become the replacement for the active missional lifestyle that each believer is called to live, they tarnish the Biblical model of individual responsibility to “go into the world”. That was an individual command Jesus made to individuals, not a corporate admonishment to establish outreach programs and events. A quick side-note: The Church really struggles with what is right to do and what is wrong to do. Rightly so. But sometimes the answers aren’t that easy. Eating chocolate cake is not wrong. Eating it in Church is not wrong. But eating it in Church and calling it a “spiritual practice”, does not make it right. Only a clear Scriptural purpose can guide us too what we are to be doing in advancing the Kingdom. We need to end the confusion. Changing our services and practices in order to become friendly towards the non-believer is a prescribed death sentence of the command to mature the saints for the work of the ministry. The worst part is this is done to “attract” the non-believer to make a commitment to Christ. And it can work. But what are we asking him to commit to? A watered-down and less than accurate description to the kind of commitment it takes to follow God. Jesus said that the identifying factor the world will see is our love for each other, not our order of service. We seem to be focusing on the elements that the flesh sees, while denying the deep need of the spirit to be filled and strengthened. It is a shame that our worship music and styles are the most common identifier as to the type of Church we are instead of our love for each other. Maybe the lowering of standards has hurt us in other areas too. When I look at the drama (some of which I must sadly confess I have caused or participated in) in the Church, it comes from people who do not understand the commitment it takes to observe the tenets of Christian conduct. So, we lower the standards, minimize the commitment, dilute the message and then complain when they act worldly rather than spiritual. As we begin to walk through the wilderness, we learn to trust Him and He begins to trust us. He doesn’t just hand His will over to a stranger. He searches out those that have taken the time to build a relationship with Him. It is a critical error in our theology to promote an easy belief and moldable Christian faith. We must walk with Him and walking with Him has a price. We cannot focus on caring for all the business of this life and develop all our provision, and then assign time to walk with Him. God is a jealous God, and He requires the first fruits. It is in the Church that these lessons must be taught. Careless teaching marks the Church today. Prosperity teaching, the “hopeful donkey” prayer life and a general unwillingness to face life as it is all betray the fact that we are not here for an easy life, but a life that brings God the glory.

For a follower of Jesus, life is hard for every one of us. That is why the reward at the end is so great. But it is all for God’s glory that we endure. Lowering the standards of involvement, not holding each other accountable, failing to examine the fruits of repentance and not having an unswerving hold on the Biblical models for fellowship does not bring God the glory. It just brings the leadership heartburn. The question is this: Are we missing the pleasures of this present world, or are we implementing them into our Christianity? Does our Christianity look any different from the lifestyles of the world? Does our music center on God or on the type of music it is? Do we dress up for the House of God with our best or do we dress in line with the present culture to make them feel more comfortable while they visit? Do we condemn “R” rated movies, violent video games and explicit lyrics and still have cable boxes in our homes promoting and playing all the things that routinely diminish Christ and make a mockery of His life? Did I mention we pay about $65.00 a month for that service? Many of the cultural practices and changes in our churches today stem from not asking tough questions about them in the first place. Did the Lord King of the universe say it clearly, or is the practice/teaching contrived by man to uphold, or defend an agenda? Just because something is organized, incorporated and well structured does not make it useful or non-divisive. As denominations continue to exert their influence and control on their congregations, they continue to guarantee that their churches will stay at the same exact performance level and spiritual accomplishment they have been achieving. Aside from there being no possible Scriptural argument in favor of denominations, denominations are focused at the continuance of their representation and beliefs of the Christian faith. The more denominations we talk with, the more varied opinions we will get. As a matter of fact, denominations have created more openly embraced divisions that we have a hard time talking about the “church”. Is that the Catholic Church, the Christian Church or the Mormon Church? Is that the Free-will Baptist Church, the Southern Baptist Church, The Anna-Baptist Church or the Seven-Day Baptist Church? Is that the Evangelical Free Church or the Grace Brethren Church? Is that the Apostolic Faith Church or the Assembly of God Church? Is that the Church of God or the Church of God of Prophecy Church? Is that the Church on the Way or the Carpenter’s House? Is it Sandals or The Sheepfold? Is it Calvary Chapel or The Vineyard?

But by lifting up denominations and conferences, by placing an emphasis on pleasing and meeting the needs of the congregants, by failing to teach and preach the whole counsel of God, by choosing comfort over conviction, by diminishing the Jewishness of Jesus and compromising Scriptural integrity to support and maintain doctrines and teaching of men rather than God, then hasn’t Christianity become a different religion, barely recognizable by its Founder and in such, a false religion embracing a false God? One thing that the denominational progress has brought us is confusion about key issues shaping the landscape of Christianity. The vast majority of those who profess Christianity are not able to give a clear definition of just what the gospel is. In the public view, which we seem to be spending great amounts of effort and resource to impress, Christians are considered to be intolerant and narrow-minded. The fact is, we are and should be intolerant and narrow-minded. As a result of working to become more “Seeker-friendly”, the gospel message has been de-tuned. I have even heard it expressed that the gospel is somewhat outdated, having only value and impact to the generation and culture that it was originally written. But the truth is that we need to consider that if God called it good news, then it should be complete enough to transcend every generation and every culture. It can reach all people for all time. After all, has de-tuning it helped? Is what we are doing really working? When we talk about the gospel, we must focus on the first word of the gospel. The first word of the gospel is Repentance. Read Matthew 3:1-2, Matthew 4:17 Mark 1:14-15 Mark 6:12, Acts 2:38 and Acts 3:19. Repentance means that you don’t have to live the old life any more. It means that there is finally a chance for real and permanent change. Now, you will struggle with it, fight against it and often be beat by it, but you can have victory over the flesh. When we share this message with others, we cannot look to find ways to soften it. We need to stop looking at the person’s sin and start looking at their desire to eliminate the fruit of sin from their lives. Even the mainstream symbol of the Christian faith has become tarnished. The cross has become an internationally known symbol of Roman Catholicism and North American Christianity. There seems a strange romanticism with the cross, with many people wearing the cross as jewelry. I find it unusual; that we so widely broadcast the symbol of the cross as a symbol of power and strength, such as it was utilized during the Crusades. The army that hailed the cross as their moniker seemed undefeatable and struck fear and intimidation in their opponents. To the Jewish people, both believing and non-believing, the cross is a reminder of the death and destruction that hundreds of thousands of Jews suffered at the hands

of the Roman Empire. At one point, Prince Titus halted the crucifixion of Jews because they could no longer find any wood. The romanticism of the cross is most readily visible in Christian circles. I offer this observation. If my wife was brutally murdered for her belief in God, and the people who were responsible for her death used a knife to kill her, what would be the chances that I would wear a symbol of a knife around my neck to honor and remember her? How many people would consider that morbid and offensive? The romanticism and power symbol of the cross are simply stripping the cross of its true meaning. The cross was an instrument of death. It is a place of complete surrender and absolute submission. While it became a place of spiritual victory, offering freedom and reconciliation between God and His creation, those that ascended to the cross died there. There were no temporary crucifixions. You did not show up when it was convenient. It was not a “show up at 9:45am on Sunday morning, come down around 12:00pm, write a check and go home” kind of experience. The cross shows us the final atonement, the final payment. Nobody wore one later. The total submission of the cross stands against much of what we see in Christianity today. We see marches and protests as a way of expanding the Kingdom. Churches are handing out sample ballots during services to influence their congregation to vote for certain candidates based on their position on “spiritual and moral” hot buttons, instead of voting on their ability to perform the job. Just because a candidate has the right ideas on issues does not make him/her qualified. We are taught that we must demand our rights. We must have vindication. We are taught that somehow, our opinion is always valid and always valued. We must be heard. Pride has replaced sacrifice. We feel the need to be experts, to always be right. There is nothing wrong with becoming wise unto the Holy Writ, provided we have spent the time struggling to learn it and are living a lifestyle that supports our understanding. We don’t need any more first-year experts. The cross, an instrument of death, or place of death, is where we come to lay it all down and follow Him. Everything in our journey with God is about relationship. The cross is about relationship. Can you see why the devil would like to get a doctrine into a church that can minimize the cross, that would make salvation light, or cheap thing? Churches are splitting over the color of the carpets or the type of music that they play because we can no longer tell the difference between a Christian and a churchgoer. If church politics and board process make us take a year to do something that could have been accomplished in two-weeks then the devil has stolen fifty weeks from us.

Submission to the cross is a life of moving away from anything and everything that does not bring glory to God and honor His words. If it does not qualify, if it does not stay consistent with Scripture, we must dispose and disregard it and move back into the reality of Scripture. Softening the Word of God to make it more palatable only creates a greater burden when a person becomes saved and sees the much higher standard of the Word of God. It is unfair and unscriptural to place this burden on them. It would be like lowering the entrance exam score to your college and then overwhelming the student with the material. What would be the point? Much of the time, in their search for God, people find church. Church is where many people stop in their search for God, and they never do find Him. They figure just being at His house is enough. Part of the problem is we have the unique ability to accept a doctrine, no matter how contrary it is to the wishes of our Lord, or His written word. We accept doctrines, solely on that they were adopted by church fathers somewhere in history, without ever feeling the need to study and see what the word is really saying. We don’t even consider the condition of the church at the time the doctrine was adopted. This practice drips with irony. So much of the depth and beauty of the Bible is dismissed as “culturally irrelevant”. The more difficult it is to understand a passage of Scripture the more likely it will be “culturally irrelevant”. What of the Biblical admonishment to teach “the whole counsel of God”? Even more fascinating is blind acceptance. If we were to ask the what and when of church doctrines, who would even know? If we were to study the lives of the early church fathers, what would we find? Allow a couple of brief (ok, I am never brief) examples. Martin Luther had a zeal to reach the Jewish people. He wrote a book to them explaining how they could come out of their darkness and see Jesus as the Messiah. When the Jewish people did not immediately respond to Luther’s suggestion, he became enraged against them. Luther went on to write articles against the Jews, commenting on expelling them from Germany and Europe, to burn their synagogues and their prayer shawls, Torah scrolls and even their homes. A rather infamous leader quoted Luther when he became Chancellor of Germany stating he was going to perform the Christian duty that Luther taught. His name was Adolph Hitler. Origen has been much credited with the beginning teachings on “church ages”, which would later become known as dispensationalist thought. Origen later castrated himself believing it would help him maintain sexual purity. He was de-

frocked by his church and later excommunicated. But, his teachings are taught and studied in seminaries today. There are countless examples that could be presented. I am not suggesting that we dismiss all contributions to the faith over the last 2,000 years. I am asking, however, that we look deeply into why we embrace these ideas and doctrines and how valid are they when laid against the Word of God and the mission of the Church. Why is this important? Because the fullness of the walk that Jesus would have us attain to, is hidden behind a veil of our religious culture. The Christian Belief System has become more authoritative then the Word of God itself. People are being taught to be followers of Christianity instead of followers of Christ. The Scriptures seem so deep to us, that we will gamble our eternal well being on what a fairly empty and lifeless form of religion hands us. We walk out of the buildings each Sunday morning feeling justified. Then we go home and turn on our televisions so we can learn how to live. Following Jesus is only a life and death matter, nothing more and certainly nothing less. How are we to navigate through this world and find Jesus? What clues and information did God leave us? He left us all we need in His word. Now, somehow, we have decided in our religious arrogance, that we really don’t need the information in the book. Doctrines and teachings have crept into the church, some through intentional efforts and some as continuations of other doctrines needing more proof. Will doctrines that are contrary to the teachings of Jesus be enough to save us on the last day? Will they serve as a good excuse for a life not empowered? An empowered life is an obedient life. If obedience is not an important factor in following Jesus, than why do we call Him Lord? Somehow, we have the strange notion that because of grace, obedience is not necessary. To God, the word “obedience” means a facet of our relationship. It is an act of worship. It is the part of us that tell Jesus, “I am with you”. The Church has developed a doctrine that says we are saved by grace and there is nothing required of us beyond an initial prayer and church attendance. The problem is that this line of thinking and teaching does not promote a “saving faith”, but a “simple faith”. Grace is the instrument by which the door was opened to us while we were sinners, but we are responsible to walk through that door. We are further responsible to continue walking. Seeing people operate with an empowered life and a saving faith is the call and purpose of the Church. There should be countless victories and measurable change

in the lives of the participants of Christianity. We have endless books written on the subject of spiritual warfare. But with all these books, why are so many people still in bondage? Why is it that in terms of societal issues (marriage, abortion, divorce, child abuse, domestic violence), Christians do not fare any better percent-wise than other faith groups or the non-believing population? We have a common enemy. Whether you are Jew or Gentile, African or American, slave or free, rich or poor, we all have a common enemy. No matter what category you find yourself in, Satan is your enemy. Satan desires our destruction, and where he cannot secure our destruction, he will focus on robbing our joy, stealing our enthusiasm and crushing our hope. But this enemy is not busy at work outside the walls of the Church. He is not busy demon-possessing Sponge Bob Squarepants. He is not outside the Church. He is working from inside her walls. He is a slanderer. However, his slander is reversed from what you would expect. The effective part of his job is not that he talks about you. Although, he does that too. His lies about us fly in every direction like flaming arrows. He lies to God about us and then turns around and performs his greatest and most effective feat. He lies to us about us. He gets us to believe things about ourselves that are not true. He works very hard to get us to believe things about ourselves that are contrary to the Word of God. We should know that if it is contrary to the Word of God, then it must not be true. But do we really know that? If we did, we wouldn’t believe his lies. Yet, when we look at the Church as it is today, what do we see? Divisions and degrees of separation seem to be the core of what the Church is about. Satan is always out to divide and conquer. Thousands of legally registered divisions exist in the Body of Christ. We don’t call them divisions, we call them denominations. Christ is cut into a thousand pieces, and the Church is without effect in the world. This enemy through his subtle lies has turned what should be the most powerful entity in the world into a mockery. The Church should be changing the world, but the world is changing the Church. The world is on its way to hell and for the most part, the Church doesn’t look much different. The problem is some of what I am addressing is so foundational and intrinsic to our practices it is hard to step away and honestly evaluate our present situation. We build doctrines, divide churches, destroy lives and say we are giving all the glory to God. I don’t think any of us (I pray not) ever wake up thinking about making the Church ineffective. But we do wake up often thinking of how to preserve a Christian faith and practice that I believe Jesus would not recognize and did not command us to put into practice.

Different leaders have read some of my writings and have commented that my ideas and thoughts “just don’t cut it”. Perhaps the problem is not my thoughts and ideas, but the fact is you are using a knife that’s not very sharp. When doctrinal rightness and denominational correctness are no longer the top priority, then we can begin to see things as they are. Christ came to effect change in the world. We appear to be happy to copy the world. Sharpen your tools. Study for the approval of God. Perhaps you just don’t see the issues and problems. You see a happy family of churchgoers. The question is, do you have enough light in your life to recognize the darkness that comes along? Are we looking at the problems or simply looking away? As I began writing this article, I sent out portions to different ministry leaders to gather their thoughts and ideas. Most said they found it thought provoking and desired to look at their own faith practices more deeply. But others suggested that I was “less of a Christian” for thinking the way I think. Some said I was disloyal to the Christian faith. I did not become a Christian because of what Christianity had done for me. I became a Christian because of what Jesus has and is doing in my life. Asking tough questions and struggling with our faith does not make us less of a Christian. It only serves to make us stronger.