where it's at.

I don't like that James River has such a shiny veneer. I don't like that the image is so trendy. It feels false. As though it's a church trying to fit in with the cool kids, like Hillsong. It's not just James River, though. My concern is more general. The megachurches are just the frontrunners in the movement, the most obvious targets. I wonder why, with so many Christians, and so much money involved in paying for church buildings, and church ministries, and church staff, why there is starvation in this world. Why is there homelessness? Why do some kids go without education?

Abolishing poverty is not an unreachable goal. But it will require that we actually start caring about poverty.

I was reading this article yesterday about how the Dems plan to re-group after the Massachusetts win. The tactical strategizing was intense, and I love me some Plouffe, but I couldn't help but think of the idiocy involved. Politicians on both sides seem to spend more time figuring out how to win elections, than how to solve real problems. Like, poverty.

Not unlike churches. Church has indeed become a "third point" for many (an intentional goal), but how valuable a goal is that? Whenever I hear a plea for people to volunteer at the church, I think... what's the point of a church that invests so much in sustaining itself? Shouldn't the church require less effort for its own good, and more for the world's?

I know, I know. We're reaching the lost. So I hear. But it seems that if we were really serious about reaching the lost, we'd go out to where they are. We'd feed them, we'd take them in, we'd volunteer outside of our own church, we'd divest ourselves of a trendy image that might embarrass or denigrate them.

Jesus tells us that we can't serve two masters. So why do we try?

Having said all of that. I like James River. And it's not the building. It's not the fancy childrens ministries--alas, I have no children. It's the sincerity of the people. I don't agree with a lot of them. I do in fact think that some of them have bought something they oughtn't (I will most likely have the same reservations in two years as I do now--I hope I don't shut up about them), but I am coming to love them. I don't agree with some of the preaching that smacks of prosperity doctrine, but I think it's mostly sincere. There is so much talent there. The musical talent alone is overwhelming.

So where does that leave me? A member of an imperfect body? A person who, just like all of them, needs the love of Christ, and God's good wisdom, to make it through to the end. I suppose.