Ask not what your church and do for you but what you can do for your church.

Pardon my messing with President’s Kennedy’s memorable speech, but it makes the point I want to make.

Over the years I have heard people complain about churches and about pastors and how they have failed to give them what they wanted. I remember calling on folk who loved to tell me about previous pastors or churches that they had had and how much they appreciated and loved them. It was an obvious comment on my lack in comparison. Made me feel like Charlie Brown as Lucy always pulled the football away from his kicking it at the last minute, as I kept on calling on these folk. But it is human nature to complain and we do it in church as we do with everything else.

But what bothers me the most about this is what lies behind such complaints. Why do we go to church? Why do we associate with church goers? Now for some it is merely a social outlet and the religious part just isn’t very important to them. From that standpoint I get the complaints, they shop for churches the way they shop for other things to meet their needs and wants.

But I believe the church exists primarily for us to say thanks to God for creating us and giving us abundant gifts. Secondly, we gather to work together to do God’s work here on earth as ambassadors of Jesus. We share faith and commitment and seek to be good citizens in God’s kingdom. Working with conflicted churches inevitably we find they have forgotten about their calling and shared ministry and are solely engaged in personality issues.

If you are going to complain about the church it should not be about your particular druthers and your needs and wants, but whether it is faithful to our common calling to be the disciples of Jesus.