Twice-A-Year Christians

I was speaking with a couple of people who told me, “we make sure we go to church twice a year … at Christmas time and Easter.”  They had a proud kind of, “waddya-think-of-that?”-type look on their faces, so I responded with, “Big deal.  It sounds to me like you believe you’re doing God a favor.”  Each gave no verbal response but it was clear they were not happy with mine.  I was then prompted to thinking again of times past when I’d heard others make that statement.  Not all twice-a-year Christians go believing they’re doing God a favor though, there being most who go out of a sense of obligation to calm their nagging conscience … to appease their guilts and fears. 

Guilts and fears are powerful motivators with both the young and the old.  One Christmas Eve I observed a restless young “twice-a-year” Roman Catholic man diligently searching the Internet to find out the Mass times at his local church.  They were nowhere to be found so he decided he’d go at 7 pm regardless.  Another “twice-a-year” Roman Catholic couple have been forced into attending Mass more often now because if they don’t, they will not be able to enroll their children at the local Roman Catholic school.  The mother spoke of her priest and shared that both she and her husband were afraid when in his presence.  I witnessed him officiating at a baby’s baptism once.  He was old, loud, controlling and demanding.

More than once have I explained to people such as this young couple that if they find themselves being afraid of their priest, or – as in the case of Protestants … reverend, elder or pastor, then they need to know that such leaders are not Spirit-led expressing the nature and character of the Lord Jesus Christ.  However, because they are ignorant of the Bible – the only book ever to reveal God’s true nature – and afraid or unwilling to submit themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ of that Bible, my counsel and encouragement goes unheeded.  When that happens, such people are in danger of inheriting and experiencing the living truth of 2 Corinthians 11:20.  It matters little if one is a “twice-a-year” Christian or otherwise.

Roman Catholic or Protestant, as Christians our choices are limited. We either follow the Lord Jesus and become servants of God or, we run the risk of following religious tyrants, becoming slaves of them.  Some paraphrases of the above Scripture:  “You put up with it if someone enslaves you, if someone exploits you, if someone takes advantage of you, if someone places themselves over you or if someone hits you in the face.”  OR  “You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face!”  OR  “For you endure it if a man assumes control of your souls and makes slaves of you, or devours [your substance, spends your money] and preys upon you, or deceives and takes advantage of you, or is arrogant and puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.”

A Christian who is ignorant of the Bible or careless with what God has to reveal to him or her from it on a personal as well as corporate level, always runs the risk of becoming enslaved, exploited, taken advantage of, robbed of their freedom, ripped off and stolen from etc.  It has been that way all through church history and it will continue till the end 2 Timothy 3:1-9.  Our only safeguard from this is to fully surrender our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and cry out that He would grant us a hunger and thirst for righteousness plus a deep love for truth.  This is more than simply a matter of “going to church.”  In fact, it will mean at some point that the one who does this will probably have to come out of their church.

Every Christian is deeply conditioned to the voice of their priest or pastor telling them not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together….” Hebrews 10:25.  But how many have ever heard that same voice warning and preparing them according to Revelation 18:4-5, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you share of her plagues.   For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered their iniquities” ?  I don’t recall ever hearing it from a leader in all the years I have sat in churches.  Neither have most people.  Which means, because of such conditioning, how many Christians when reading that Revelation Scripture would respond to it as a personal message for themselves if the Holy Spirit of God gave it to them?

I’ve been thinking about this for a long while and it’s my opinion that not many Christians would receive it personally.  Two fellow Christians were very surprised to learn that I was not gathering with others “at church.”  So conditioned had each one been to hearing and quoting the “not forsaking” Scripture, that it shot out of their mouths quicker than a bullet from a gun!  Nodding and agreeing with each one I made reference to “Come out of her my people.”  No response … just a shaking of the head followed by, “Yes, but you should…….”  In each of their churches there is far more Babylon being expressed than there is Holy Spirit-led biblical truth, but they are blinded to that reality.

Besides, church leaders who lay their heavy emphasis on “not forsaking……..” nearly always do so at the expense of any quoting and teaching from 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.  Whilst one can never know the heart of a fellow Christian (twice-a-year or otherwise) it is most certainly my belief that more Christians would become more committed to the Lord Jesus and His church if they were taught that they too were to minister in the church – exactly as those in the first church did.  In New Testament Acts, we see true body ministry in action, not simply the preacher and the song leader as we see it so boringly presented in churches throughout the world.

Some leaders love to talk about “body ministry” in their gatherings, but in my experience that’s all it is – talk.  That is, unless one considers the few in music, singing, recording the service and the many in tea-making, toilet cleaning and after-service shallow chit-chat to be body ministry.  Most people do, even if it’s not verbalised.  Something else I noticed a long time ago and that is the ineffectiveness of the sermon to bring about the desired change in the all-too passive pew-sitters.  People love to hear sermons, they get emotionally touched by them week after week but rarely do we see any spiritual change within most people even after 10, 20, 30 or 40 years of sitting in that same pew.

If what is said here is not true, there would be evidence of it, but there is not.  If the church were a corporate commercial business looking for returns on its investment, it would go broke within a matter months.  Worse – the institutional church is spiritually broke.  God sees very little return for His investment in that place.  Has all this come about because we are conditioned to keep silent, not interrupt, ask or challenge the pastor when he preaches?  I believe partially so.  Why?  In the New Testament we see that the ministry of God’s word came from the entire church in their regular gatherings and it included, teaching, exhortation, prophecy, singing and admonishment – all very different from what happens in most church gatherings today.

Apart from the usurping Diotrephes trying it on, one-man church leadership is nowhere to be seen in the New Testament.  Even the elders did not have the type of control that most Christians today think they had.  Every believer had the spiritual discernment to recognize those who were gifted to carry out the various ministries.  God’s people are no different today, but they’re simply not taught or encouraged.  Therefore, there’s no opportunity for them to exercise their gifts as those early church saints did.  It is not the Holy Spirit Who has moved or changed, it is those who believe He has placed them in charge.  Were it not for the seriousness of the situation it would be laughable when the pastor or elders of today’s churches claim to pattern themselves on the early church of Acts.  They do not.

Yes, there will always be those people who proudly go to church thinking they’re doing God a favor, regardless of whether it be “twice-a-year” or twice-a-Sunday.  However, they fool nobody but themselves.  The Christians that concern me are the other “twice-a-year” attendees.  That is, those who feel obligated, filled with nagging consciences plus guilt and fear.  Where do those things come from?  Who placed them there?  I have worked with enough people to know that a lot of it has come from religious tyrants who ruled them with an iron fist – whether these tyrants be old, loud, controlling and demanding, or whether they be young, softly spoken, controlling and demanding.  Such people are not godly, they are devilish (monstrously cruel, wicked).

That may sound judgmental and harsh but if a person comes into a church and he or she is never encouraged, led or invited to personally discover the living, loving, liberating Lord Jesus Christ for themselves – with no strings attached – no hidden agendas …”devilish” is what that leadership is.  The New Testament apostolic writings give us plenty of warnings and descriptions on the nature and character of such leaders and how they operate.  It is my prayer that Christian people everywhere would take serious note as they read and study those writings, then wait upon the Holy Spirit to reveal personally what steps He would have them take.  Some will be informed that it’s time to, “Come out of her my people…..” “For God has not given us (you) a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7.