Die to self, love the bride

This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"

I resonate with this. I want to die to self. Churches need to die to themselves. At the same time:

Sure, the Church has problems. But rather than "washing" the bride and helping her to clean up (Ephesians 5:25-32), I fear there are still too many of us who would rather "shoot" the bride and get a new one! It feels to me as if we emerging church leaders need to develop more passion for the bride of Christ. Do you agree or disagree?

Comments

[Rose]

I do understand where this is coming from but I feel uncomfortable with it. I left the traditional church and am working with my husband and some other people to start a new church because all our efforts to bring about change were shot down. We felt like we were beating our heads against the wall. We were told things like "that's not the way our church does things" when we suggested simple changes. We think that fundemental changes need to be made but when we couldn't even effect simple changes we felt like we could accomplish more by starting over. When the church won't consider singing the hymns from a transparency instead of the hymnal in order to improve the flow between the choruses and hymns do you really think that they will listen to us when we suggest that maybe they should give up having nice homes and a comfortable lifestyles for the sake of the kingdom of God? I do love the bride of Christ and I will never give up on the church completely but I think that sometimes when the institution that has grown up around her is so infested and corrupted with bad theology and ecclesiology there comes a point where the structures need to be torn down in order to make way for the new. Consider when God sent Isreal into exile he did it because they were so corrupt that nothing else would bring them to repentance. He didn't write them off completely and start again rather he saved a faithful remenent to rebuild his people from. Similarily, I haven't writen off the church and I don't think God has either. I think that the churches culture and attitudes need to be rebuilt by the faithful who are willing to die to self and live their lives and build the church in what ever way will best bring glory to God.

[Micah 6:8]

The Beautiful Bride of Christ?There is an interesting excerpt on the the dying church blog that came from the desert pastor's blog that got me thinking. Here are some of my thoughts on it. I do understand where this is coming from but I...

[rick]

This is one of my concerns as well. I voiced my thoughts on "saving the church" at my blog: www.thirdjohnfour.blogspot.com