Lets throw the baby out with the bat water.

While pondering the title for this blog entry, i had a number of options, but none of them where that polite, and they would have gotten me into trouble. This is going to be a rant, and if you don't like it i'm genuinely not going to stay up all night fretting about it.

The other day as is per usual i was told i'm not a normal Christian (whatever normal is) so it was time to ask the person who made the statement what was a normal christian, what made me un normal and what made normal, this is how part of that conversation went.

" So whats a normal Christian look like, how do they behave, what do they do?" it seemed logical to start from that point. "Well most Christians i have met and i have met a few, tend to harp on about theology, tend to prattle on about who is right who is wrong, while missing the fundamental purpose of why i believe Jesus came to the planet and died for humanity" Unfortunately i could not disagree with him, i was going to reply to his statement, but actually decided against it as i had no real answer to give him, no real reply.

But this brings up a far greater question in my mind, and this is where i'm going to get shouted down. But before you do look and see if what i have written is truthful, not just for you as an individual, but also for the church as a whole, and i include all denominations in that, not just Methodist.

We spend so much time crossing the t's and dotting the i's that somewhere along the line that has become more important than the reason the church was founded by Christ "to make disciples of all nations". It's something we don't like to admit and if we do admit it we justify it by any excuse possible, and in a lot of cases is is any excuse possible. But if you bring this up with Christians apparently none of the ones i talk to enjoy being sat in meetings, so as we have so many of them who is actually going along to them, who keeps these things going?

Personally i have always been a round peg in a square hole, never really fitted into Church life, i try and boy i do try. At times keeping my mouth shut is the hardest thing in the world, because for me the hardest thing in the world to deal with. Is a lost world going to Hell in a hand basket and we are all to concerned about wether to put a fridge in the kitchen, wether to have black chairs, blue chairs, you know the score. My hear breaks when i se good people sidetracked by good intentions, but the intention rarely becomes action, rarely moves beyond an idea. The day i got saved was monumental for me, it changed my life, i stopped doing vast amounts of drugs, i stopped so much it made a difference. Somewhere along the lines we have become sidetracked from being a mission orientated people into an ordered people, not following orders from God but the orders laid down because of our meetings.

Now before all you good people (especially you Methodists)| start jumping up and down over what i have said, i would respectfully ask you to read some of the threads on the Methodist UK Facebook
page. If you think we have not thrown out the baby with the bath water read them and unfortunately weep, because last night i cried a river. And it's not only methodists like i said go onto any denominations site and read the forums, you get very little about mission, but a great deal about how we should do ABC. The fact is that discussing a fridge or the colour of chairs is not going to bring somebody to faith, Jesus said "go into all the world, and make disciples of all men" we are actually in danger of going into the world and making no difference at all.
You can now rail against me but I'm going to ask a favour. If you are going to do so, please do it by email, part of this rant is about how the threads are seen by the public at large and i'm not going to enter into a public slanging match with anyone. If you want to do it we do it privately.