salvation

I have mentioned the theme of salvation in other places. Obviously it is often on my mind but not in the context of my non-christian friends. Yes they need salvation. Thats easy and of course I need to serve the great commission in their interest but salvation often comes to mind around my church friends. Salvation is not a choice. It is a response to the invitation of God to repent of who we are and to allow the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with the consequence that Christ manefests His nature through us individually and corporately as the church. I have often been confronted by really good people. I mean salt of the earth, easy to be around, charitable, loving people who explode with anger at the mention of church. Some of the faithful would say this was demonic but in truth, these wonderful people have simply encountered a "christian" and been wounded by their disappointment. Even the world has expectations that the presense of Christ should be delightful, comforting and even awesome but what they find usually leaves a bad taste in their mouths. It is our fault. We lure people in with Contemporary Christian Worship(raves). We teach relevant messages(Christless). We replace repentence and dying to self with promises of Holy Spirit power and fire and then send these "christians" out to burn the world. They are succeeding.
A few years ago my pastor was an overseer at Tehillah which met Monday nights at the Canada Christian College. They would draw hundreds of young people for a night of exciting worship and teaching. Most of these kids were students at the college. Many will be future leaders of the church. All worshipped till they dropped kind of thing. Laura Woodley(a song writer and worship leader) would announce each week that they needed people to go out on the streets of Toronto the following Saturday to witness and give stuff to the homeless. Only one or two out of hundreds ever came to do kingdom work. Where was the spirit of compassion after the spirit of party was gone?
If salvation is the inworking of the Spirit to manefest Christ in us and through us but if we neglect those that Christ came for and directed us toward, in favor of pimping out our church and worship teams then who among us are really saved.
Who is responsable for the souls of church members who come and serve and tithe but may not know Christ?????

wandering thoughts

I have not posted anything for a while and it wasn't a lack of subjects to broach but more so there were too many things that stirred me up this past week. Just when I think I've heard every twisted story possible about church in Brantford, another story comes along. It makes it hard to stick to my own rules and remain constructive in this conversation. I'll try. One thing that I have come to notice is the difficulty that a pastor must have in communicating the truth to the congregation. Taking for granted that the pastor is well versed in sound biblical doctrine, which many today are not, how many congregations really care about
sanctification,regeneration,substitution or even salvation. I got to wondering about salvation once years ago and so I did a very long study on it before approaching a very Godly pastor. He kindly confirmed much of what I'd found and suggested that many would not want to know these things. Just for fun I approached the elders of the church and asked them individually what salvation was. None of them could give any answer that was even in the ballpark. I later attended a men's fellowship meeting and when I could not find anyone interested in discussing Christ as opposed to hockey I soon left that fellowship. Church was supposed to be where we came together and shared Christ within us,the nature that His Spirit imbued us with to teach and encourage each other.
Really it is the centrality of Christ that marks a true fellowship. Does the fellowship focus on healings, or blessings or better and better worship or does it focus on dying to self and being filled with Christ and being transformed by that into the true church. Does it pray for external manifestation or internal victory over self. Does your church put it's value in Heaven or in a big building with a sound system? I'm just talkin' here.
later...............................dave