Who are we serving...

It has occurred to me that there may have been a fundamental shift in how we perceive the Church.

I'm talking about people inside the Church, how people inside the Church perceive Church. How the members of the Church perceive the Church. Hundreds of books have been written about how people outside the Church perceive the Church, and I'm not sure they've got it right yet. We seem to still be trying to figure that one out.
However, people inside the church see it differently than they used to. It seems to me that at the beginning, in the Bible days in the first century, that church was the resource given to believers to best serve God. People would use active participation in the Church to serve God. We were active in the Church to serve others, to serve God.

Today, it seems that many people are serving the Church. But we've lost that the Church was simply a means for serving God. It's become an end. We don't worry about serving God. We just serve the Church.

What happened? How did so many loose track of what we should serve? When did the resource, the tool, the means, become the end in itself? And perhaps much more importantly, how do we get back to where we were?

I suppose it's a heart issue. People's hearts aren't right with God. Even some people in the Church aren't right with God. Their hearts aren't right. Our hearts aren't right.

I know that God can work in the heart. It's not a lost cause. But it will take each of us examine our hearts. Making sure that we are right. Making sure that we are serving God as He has intended. When each of our hearts are right, then the Church will once again be the means to serve God.

Until then, I'm worried that the Church in America will continue to bob up and down on a sea of disbelief. Oh, the power God is waiting to give us. If only we would serve Him.