Hospitals and brain burps

Last Sunday the guest preacher had a great illustration comparing churches to hospitals. I can not say it as well as he did but he started out asking when you are sick what do you look for in a hospital? Good coffee? Good food? Nice decor? Great parking?Comfortable chairs? Doctors who are really funny and know how to wow a crowd? Of course not. You go to a hospital looking for a cure. You want doctors who know what they are doing. Decor is nice, but you want from a hospital is medicine, treatment, therapy, a plan to beat your illness and hope that you will be OK. He said people come to churches for the same things...answers, help, a plan to get better, salvation, hope, someone who cares. We live in a fallen world where all have sinned and fallen short. We all need a cure for this world and Jesus is the only cure. As he was speaking his illustration it made perfect sense to me. I thought he had great points. His sermon inspired the following brain burp...read at your own risk.

As I thought the hospital illustration and the church it did not seem to fit if you take it beyond a life or death crisis.. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this is why churches struggle to be relevant to people at times. Yes, the church is here to be Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the cure for the world. Churches are here to bring people to the cure. But does the world really know it is sick? Do I really think I am sick? Do people realize they need Jesus? Do I? Have churches accidentally conformed to some type of religious country club because people don't like hospitals. They don't want to be told they are sick, they just want fellowship and nice place to live. Who would want to live in a hospital? Who really wants to conform to a regimented lifestyle of medication , therapy, diet and health restrictions? Who wants to live like they are sick? Can churches be hospitals for the soul? People don't want to live in a hospital state. They want to get well and leave.. And not all of them will desire to become doctors, no matter how grateful they are to be cured. In fact most don't. They leave the doctoring to the doctors. We only go to the hospital when we have to... and we leave as soon as we can.

So I was thinking... what in life can illustrate the relationship of people to the church? I instantly thought of grocery stores. You have to go to the grocery store to get food to nourish your body. Everyone needs groceries. Everyone has to eat. But the grocery store illustration puts churches in a position to cater to a consumer mind set. That just isn't what Jesus intended for his church...at least in my mind.

So then I thought about people needing Churches as they do employment. You have to earn a living. You need to work as a team and use your talents. Everyone has to get money from somewhere. But I have problems thinking of the blood of Christ as a paycheck since we could never earn it on our own so that doesn't work.

The thing is the our relationships to churches and to Jesus just don't conform to the examples of our world. They are unique and upside down in relation to our culture. If you think I am going somewhere with this, sorry! Just thinking on-line. Not sure I have any answers. In fact it seems to me that the older I get, the less I feel I know. The questions are multiplying by the day but the answers are harder and harder to come by. Sometimes in life I feel like I am back in preschool Bible class where every kid knows that the right answer to every question asked is Jesus, even though they don't understand the reasoning or the whys. Anyone else feel this way? Just wondering...