Church Attachment Disorder

We tend to polarise things as either good or bad.  The issue is not the thing it is the human heart that uses it.  The internet has been a tremendous force for good but it has also been twisted so that it promotes sin and dulls love for Christ.

One of the areas where it has been at its most beneficial and its most destructive is in the easy access we have to podcasts or MP3s. It is brilliantly helpful to be able to download and listen to experienced preachers preach well, I always have 4 or 5 sermons on my phone so I can listen to them.  Sermons from Pastors in the UK, the states and further afield, some well know others less so, and they are immensely helpful.  They are also great if you can't make a conference, to be able to listen later is invaluable.  It is also immensely helpful within our churches, those who are out teaching the children can listen again in the week, we ourselves can listen again to help solidify thing sin our minds and apply it to our hearts and lives.  Used wisely and discerningly they can help us with preparation.

But we also need to recognise that there can be destructive effects.  Increasingly there seems to be a detachment from real living breathing church, I've heard a number of people say when asked why they've been missing church.  "Oh, I don't really need church, I've decided to stay at home and listen to _________(fill in the blank with a more well known pastor) on the internet."    This attitude is leading to a church detachment disorder - Christians who will not commit to a local congregation with its joys and sorrows, or listen to a pastor who may not preach as well as a more experienced pastor but is a living breathing pastor.

Such an attitude has reduced church to the sermon, and ignores the congregation and the benefit of real relationships therein.  I wonder if this has partly arisen because of a misunderstanding, maybe even a wrong emphasis, in the church on the sermon.  Our interaction with the Bible must not stop at listening to the sermon, but we are to be working it into one another's lives, to be discussing it together, to be challenging one another, to be comforting one another as we look to change in light of what we've heard as we apply the gospel within the church family.

I wonder if another thing that has led to this problem is seeing pastors solely as preachers.  Are we guilty of this?  Do our people see us outside of the pulpit, outside of a Sunday?  Are we loving them, speaking the truth to them during the week as well as Sundays?

Church attachment disorder is the result of lots of forces in society but we also need to recognise the part we may play in encouraging it, and repent of those misunderstandings we may have helped propagate and change.