Why churches as they are now cannot survive as they are now:

• We meet in buildings while there are homeless people in our neighborhoods.
• We have potlucks while there are hungry people around us.
• We employ church staff to care for buildings and training for spiritual work while surrounded by people who have no jobs and lack training for employment.
• We have boards and elders and bishops who rule and do politics instead of shepherding the flock and looking for the lost and wandering.
• We fight about pure doctrine but fail to live (and help others live) pure lives.
• We fail to teach what Jesus of Nazareth taught and how He lived because a lot of it is “a hard saying.” — As if God was wrong about us deserving a perfect example of how to live.
• We call a lot of our doctrine “Christian” even when Jesus of Nazareth never weighed in on it.
• We cater to the desires of the greatest and fail to help meet the needs of the least of these.
• In fact, we see others as greater and lesser, the very concept Jesus of Nazareth criticized when, in His very next words, He called them His brothers.
• We condemn rather than encourage.
• We divide instead of unifying.
• We even segregate: by age, sex and even race.
• We pursue cheap influence and power rather than being genuine examples and servants.
• We always think we’re right, and somehow that makes us better than others, instead of dealing with our own fallibility and showing humility.
• We think grace is a gift that we can keep for ourselves.
• Our praise only goes upward and not outward. We could be recognizing the good done by others and seeing Christ in them even if they can’t.
• We measure good by how good it is for us, instead of how scripture defines it as what’s good for all.
• We see church as an institution rather than as a home, and — as the saying goes — who wants to live in an institution?