The Western Church Shaking

There's enemy, who has entered into our big western churches because it's easier to hide there. The grander, wider and more stretched thin the church, the more effortless the concealment. The big, bad wolf only has to put on grandma's cap and gown, and we hardly notice a difference between him and our elderly loved ones. He slips in masquerading as an angel of light, and all his servants mimic the saints they sit next to in the pews (2 Cor. 11:14). This enemy has lulled us into a lukewarm love affair with tradition.

The trap is hard escape. When we become a large programmatic entity rather than a small flock of sheep-- an organization rather than a family-- then we've opened the door to a wide array of burdensome slumber parties or secular swag. A small holy-huddle can also exist in small churches with equally ill effects. There are enough pharisees in that scenario to aid the enemy without recognizing their errors. Big or small, wolves infiltrate the western world promoting religion rather than relationship.

Whatever the church's original design, it seems to have lost the ability to comprehend a vast foreign landscape beyond its walls. Daniel Hasletine from Jars of Clay said it this way: "We have given ourselves over to the familiar incense of tradition. We have grown accustomed to the perception of a King with few dimensions. We have wrapped ourselves in the robe of safety and settled into our cozy surroundings. We have fallen asleep, while a warming fire rages just out of reach." (Foreword The Narrow Road by Brother Andrew, pg. 6)

The source of this slumber lies in our perfect distance from the fire. We stay cozy enough to point our fingers at others rather than save ourselves from the nearing flames. We are lulled by the warmth, not stirred by the heat. Elizabeth Elliot analyzed it well: “Why is it that Christians find it so easy to define worldliness in terms of amusements only? It must be because that sort of thing can be cured by an edict rather than a fundamental shaking. Deeper than the trifles as are argued about, condemned and used as the criticism for fellow Christians, whitewashed religion itself is the hardest idol to fall. (“Forcible Shakings” chapter 9 in Elizabeth Vaughn's Being Elizabeth Elliot)

You can't be whitewashed if you've sitting in a furnace. The paint will melt off like water. Nearness to the flames provides a real shaking when you've been in a deep slumber. We all need a good shaking now and then, but the western world may be especially due. A shaking stirs us toward humility, realizing we didn't see the flames sooner. "But who can discern their own errors? Lord forgive my hidden faults." (Psalm 19:12). None of us can hold to an edict or a way of life and truly follow Jesus. We won't see our own sin without His Spirit burning at our core.

We must always be ready to admit our lack and our need, but when we are comfortable, we don't see any needs. Discomfort means we can feel pain, and pain produces people of authentic relationships, shaking us back to our knees rather than standing boldly on our own two feet.

A forcible shaking will separate us from that which falsely chains us. The western church needs to unhinge from its incense of corporate tradition and embrace either the heat of the furnace or the frigidity of ice. Either burn would be better than the lukewarm existence we are sleeping in today.

~Shaken Carefully & Carelessly