Churches need to do better

A bit disturbed right now. Like I do many mornings, to pass time on the treadmill I try to fill myself with the word of God. I spend lots of time (but still not as much as I should) actually praying and reading the word of God myself. But I also tune in to hear what the Lord is giving to other men of God at other churches. Sometimes I find meat and get full. Usually I’m still hungry, and sometimes I feel sick like I just got food poisoning. I had just finished a nice healthy meal listening to a true Pastor, Dean Odle, bringing the fire and not just preaching the cross, but also repentance, ie the full gospel. I still had time to burn on the treadmill so I thought, let me check back in with my old mega church and see how their service went for “Easter”. I saw a few of my fb friends say it was a great message so I went in. Unfortunately I didn’t even make it to the sermon.

In true mega church fashion we of course need to open with some use of technology and a joke. Somehow with all of the leadership team’s collective wisdom and discernment, the best they could come up with is some viral video of children being terrified by some demonic, serial-killer-horror-movie looking rabbit costume as they scream in terror and run away screaming “that’s not the Easter bunny!”

As disturbing as the video was, and as appalling as it was for church leadership to think this was somehow an appropriate way to open a service, supposedly dedicated to celebrating the resurrection of the one true God, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, the most sickening part of all of this is when the feed switched over to hear the entire church laughing at the terror the children experienced, as the Pastor laughed and joked about how the children are going to need counseling later on in life.

No they’re not going to need counseling, they’re going to need deliverance from a demon of fear that got inside them because the people who were trusted and assigned to protect them failed to do their job and forced open the hedge of protection around their precious little lives. And y’all want to clap and laugh and celebrate this wickedness?

I was hoping to hear a nice message about Jesus. Instead I didn’t even get there and now I feel disgusted and angry.

Do better 12Stone Church. You really can do so much better.

It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Luke 17:2