This is a question that everyone who goes to church asks themselves from time to time. We also ask the question: What can I do to get them to come to my Church? The answer is not to change the way you do things to make it more appealing to the outside world but rather to become more authentic in your worship and relationship with Christ so that others will want the same thing you have.

When I first became a Pastor I had a freind of mine that told me to pray for perfect love for people. He described that love to me as being the same kind of love Jesus Christ had for the theif on the cross when he invited him to "be with me in paradise!" I didn't realize what I was asking for until God began to show me a little of what he saw in our world today. I began to see the good in people, not only the bad.

In I John 1:5-10 John speaks of walking in the Light and that if you walk in the light then you should have fellowship with Christ. The problem is that the "Church" of today has failed to have fellowship with Christ, or try to see those outside the Church the way Christ saw them. We fail to love them without condition. We as the Church have started to forget where we were when we came to Christ.

Matthew 18:3 Tells us to "come as little children" and this is where we have taken that command from Christ himself a little to far. We have come to Christ for the GIFT of salvation only to be as a spoiled little child and hold it close to ourselves as if you don't want to share that gift. (Trust me there is enough of God's love to go around) We hold onto it as a child holds onto a new toy at Christmas. People on the outside of the Church only see the people inside of the Church as such and begin to want nothing of what the Church has to offer.

I fear this is the Lukewarmness of Revelation 3:14-20 that Christ referred to. We no longer are a place of refreshment or healing. We have become a place of rules and legality where people don't find rest, but more problems and more stress.

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Rev 3:17 (KJV)

The Churchs of today are filled with Christians on cruise controld to Heaven and we think to ourselves how wonderful life is when Christ obviously points out that if idle is what we have become, then we are poor, wretched, blind, miserable and naked.

Live your witness, Speak your witness, and most importantly, Do what God has called us all to do. (Matthew 28:19) Pray without ceasing, Study Gods Word and become the type of Christian that God can use. Remember he prepared the disciples before he sent them out. (Matthew 4)