Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Virtual Church . . its not as far away as you think.

'virtual' has a similar meaning to ' quasi-' or 'pseudo'-

If you Google Virtual Church you will actually find one. The concept is that you can experience a worship service and a community of people without direct interface. You can do 'church' without the messiness of people. In a way, that's what Blogger offers a lot of people, community without the messiness of life. Its probably one of the reasons why I like it. I get to create my own reality through this page, that I design, comment on whatever I want, and change features of that reality. On my page, I am the creator, initiator, and controller. You are the responder. Could I be treading on Idolatry? Give me an Amen! . . . I promise never to use my power for evil.

Now, even though there is an opportunity to experience the Virtual church, our approach to the real church is not much different. We attend a service, often designed to our liking ( and if not, we find one that is), we critique it like a Broadway musical afterwards, using lingo like " I wasn't fed today ", and then we go about our existence; being creator, initiator, and controller ( so we think), avoiding the messiness and beauty of human interaction.

" 13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" James 5:13-16 NIV

0 comments: