Daily writing prompt

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

View all responses

Week after week
Sermons scatter seeds
When preachers quote
From the Bible.
But those seeds won’t grow
In people’s hearts
Without living water
From God’s Spirit
That empowers people
And prompts them to do
What God tells them to.
(John 7:38-39)

Church should be
Something you do
Not just something
You sit through.
Let Christians gather
To listen to
And to do
What God’s Spirit
Tells them to.
(Corinthians 14:26)

When Christians are only hearers
Their religion is deceptive
Like a show of smoke and mirrors.
God doesn’t want Sunday sitters
Or mere shallow worship cheerers.
He wants people to be doers.
Do this: Read and actually do
James 1:22-27.

A church service that sets people down to hear the word but doesn’t give them time to do the word is in violation of James 1:22-23 and is helping people to deceive themselves. There is no logical or biblical reason why a church service couldn’t allow people some time to do the word every Sunday morning. But instead of training people to do the word, most church services seem like a religious talk do-over week after week.

It’s okay to want to change the way church is done. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Meno Simons, George Fox, John Wesley, William and Catherine Booth, and William Seymour at Azusa Street all changed the way church was done, yet people consider them to be heroes of the faith.