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Can Church Be Boring?

Meditation on Mark 1:21-28

It must seem peculiar to some that church can be so boring to so many people far so long a period of time. What is amazing is that so many people are comfortable with "boring church." When Jesus went into the synagogue at Capernaum in Mark chapter one- things were anything but boring. Why?-that would be a great place to start asking our questions.

Two things stand at the forefront. One, Jesus taught with authority. Too much teaching in church is done in a spirit of weakness and lack of confidence in the text of Scripture. When we gain confidence in God's Word as innerant, infallable, and inspired our preaching cannot be without authority. How could they be - the words are straight from the mind of God. Therefore, they must be both authoritative and bold.

Secondly, we see Jesus confront a man with an unclean spirit. What is a man with an unclean spirit doing in the synagogue you might ask? Another good question, but we see uncleaness scattered throughout our pews every week. Our minds are filled with the trash that television pours out at us and we are a by-product of what our culture has fed us. Therefore, we stand in the same place as the demon possessed man. Jesus was not passive in his confrontation with the unclean and neither should we be. He met the devil head on and the confrontation was- well, not boring.

Our churches can break from boredom as well. I think a good start would be to see God's Word as authoritative and see His church as holy. We must recover at least these two things. A right view of Scripture and a cleansing of God's house will be no easy battle to wage, but easy was never the goal to begin with. The journey will be hard and for those who have already begun the task the least of their testimony will be - it was not boring!

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