Zero-Proof Faith

Lately, I have been thinking about what people are searching for. We in the American church sometimes feel like people aren't seeking, but the truth is, they're looking: for fulfillment through career, for soul-pleasure through wealth, and for spirituality through tarot cards, Oprah-driven self-empowering, psychic hotlines, and celebrity-sponsored scientology.

Reading "The God Chasers" over the last couple of days, I have been overwhelmed with the sense that it's as if our churches are trying to sell non-alcoholic beer. There are some people who claim to just like the taste of beer and so they buy it. But everyone else says, "that stuff isn't potent, it isn't the real thing, it doesn't change me, and look, it doesn't even really TASTE good. And so I'll just pass up what you're offering, and continue looking for the real stuff. Thanks, anyway." In the meantime, we just sit contentedly in our nice little services and practices and groups and spend time convincing ourselves that we really like non-alcoholic beer. But the truth is, we long for the power, we long for changes in our behavior that ONLY come when we're overwhelmed with the Spirit of God, we long for more than the watered down version we're trying to sell everyone else.