The other night it was rather quiet in our house and I was perusing my list of news feeds. I kept running across two news stories that had me sick to my stomach in a “we just don’t get it” type of way. The ‘we’ being us who claim Christianity in the United States and the ‘get it’ had to do with the sacrifice that I feel we are compelled to as followers of Christ.

The stories that had me sick were the reports of Christians in Iraq and those others around the world that went to worship services as church with a degree of threat on their life (in Nigeria this particular day it cost many their lives). Contrast that with the reports of our American Megachurches who were closing for the Sunday after all their Christmas service festivities.

I put my thoughts out there in a twitter posting.

And had a few responses. My friend Adam Mclane put together a much more articulate exploration of this contrasting practice of our same faith.

“For a large part of the world loving Jesus is tied closely to suffering. Many are expelled from their families for following Jesus. Some are sold as slaves. Some are imprisoned. Some experience economic inequity. Many are breaking the law by meeting– even in private. Many are left as outcasts. Many go hungry while their neighbors do not.

..

For a large part of the United States loving Jesus is tied closely to convenience. We do things when it works for us. But when it is more convenient to not do something, we pretend like we don’t even see it.

To summarize: In some parts of the world people risk death threats to worship while in other places in the world we’re taking the Sabbath off so we can spend time with family.”

I certainly am guilty of the convenience part of my church culture. It is probably why this compelled me so much to point of feeling ill.

I’d like to think we are compelled by Christ so deeply that we sacrifice our well being our conveniences to be part of his church, whether that be a house church, mega-church, parish church, para-church, etc.

The convenience we treat our church communities with reinforces to me that critique that church acts more like a country club, or some store of consumer goods than a place of holy worship and life giving community.

What do you think?