Today is part two of six blog posts regarding why I am going to build an ark! May seem a little strange so check out this blog post to see what it’s all about, ‘Time To Build An Ark’. For those who can’t be bothered to click on another post, you’ll find out in part six what I am really building, and no it’s not an actually ark! Also check out part one if you click here.

Part 2

At the beginning of 2009 almost overnight I began to gain a different perspective on life. No longer was life about me or my dreams but I felt I was walking into something that was way bigger than me. As this new perspective came over me I also started seeing the environment around me with fresh eyes.

The first thing I saw differently was Sunday morning church. For all my life I have been going to church on a Sunday morning. I had been to good and bad churches. Ones I enjoyed and ones, lets just say I wouldn’t return to. For years I believed if we could just get people into a church service then that would make the difference in their lives.

However, God started to show me how people really felt about the church services they attended. This was not limited to one church but to all types across different styles and genres. It was like a light suddenly switched on. People would walk into church sit through a service and be totally disengaged. In fact to be honest, people were bored of church. They would mutter their way through the songs and just completely switch off during the sermon. This wasn’t just one or two. This was a mass disengagement across the board.

What seemed liked boredom, was in fact something much worse. You can put on a show to engage people. However, these churches weren’t boring, they were dying! There was a smell of death that was creeping into the hearts of the people sitting in the pews.

It was at this moment that I realized that most of the things we did in church was aimed at engaging people. Keeping people entertained for an hour or so wouldn’t cut it. I discovered that it was probably doing more harm than good for people to actually attend church (sounds awful doesn’t it?). What the church needed was life! God is the creator of life but for the most part, this thing we call the church was full of death.

I knew at this point that we needed to create something that brought life, vitality and something that was fresh. This was only the first thing I noticed before I felt called to “build an ark”.

Let me ask you one question though. Are you contributing to the death or are you searching, finding and reproducing life? The church was called to be a living body, not a death boring institution.