The world doesn't need another church

The world is messy
It's filled with complicated people and unfair circumstances
We have hundreds of "friends" and "followers" but walk around lonely
Predators and terrorist exist
Hearts hurt, our bodies groan, break and need
Evil is real
But so is God,
And His heart for people, even the complicated unlovable ones, is that they would know the HOPE of eternity
Know His presence,  His love,  His best in our today and the promise of His better tomorrow.

The world needs to know this God
His heart, that breaks and longs and swells and cares for His kids
His LOVE
His thoughts, the ones that are higher and deep and wider than our understanding
His HOPE
His justice, that's always fair and requires the price be paid
His mercy, that says - I'll pay the price
His GRACE
His GOODNESS

But the world doesn't need another church
The world doesn't need another building, or assembly or gathering place for believers
It needs the believers to stop the routine of church
And it needs the church to start being The Church
It needs the hearts of people to start bleeding
Bleed for the abandoned, the lonely, the lost, the lovely and the unloveable
It needs the eyes of pew sitters to start seeing
See the hurting, the homeless, the father-less, and the dark corners we're accustomed to ignoring
It needs the ears of the Sunday listeners to start hearing
Hear the cries for help, the voices of the oppressed and persecuted
The world doesn't need another church it needs The Church to come alive,
To go, reach, love, seek, share, hope, give, move, abide, focus

I get tangled up in the everyday; the emotion, the mess, the drain of being needed and needing
But, I don't want to be short-sighted, full on the Word, but caught up in self
I don't want to miss the eternal
The souls, wrapped in skin, walking into a tomorrow that stretches into forever
I know a God the world needs
And I don't want to miss the call
I want to be the Church
Because
We're all walking into an eternal tomorrow
And we get today

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says...

Religion that our God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

- James 1: 22&27 -