DO IT YOURSELF RELIGION

Religion has developed its own methods for getting things done. Everyone seems to have his own methods for being religiously sucessful. “How to do it” books on just about any subject are available. A casual look at the books on religion reveals a great number with titles such as the following:

“How to Boost Your Church Attendance”

“How to Work for Christ.”

“How to Win Others to Christ”

“How to Be a Soul-Winner”

“How to Succeed in the Christian Life”

“1000 Plans and Ideas for Sunday School Workers”

“65 Ways to Give an Evangelistic Invitation.”

“Ideas for a Successful Church Program”

“Successful Church Publicity”

These books all present what are supposed to be tried and proven plans for being religiously successful. They might be called ‘Get Religious Quick’ schemes. They are the do-it-yourselfer’s dream.

These schemes all come packaged complete with elaborate details as to how to make them work. If the plan is followed results are guaranteed!

There are those alert enought to keep an eye on the advertising business and entertainment world. Anything that works in thes fields can usually be religionized and made to work in the churches.

Too much of religion is concerned with carrying out success schemes and promotions.

We have taken the majesty, glory and magnificence of religion and reduced it to a cheap do-it-yourself plan.

Yes, do it yourself religion is popular.

Everyone prays, “Thy will be done.” But really, we’d rather do it ourself.

Everyone can know what the Bible says but we’d still rather do it our own way….

The complex machinery of today’s religion has also produced a need for spiritual specialists. There was a time when being a minister meant preaching and attending to the spiritual needs of a congregation. Today the cry is for specialization. The day of the general practitioner will probably soon be over.

Today it is common for larger churches to have several different kinds of clergy on their ordained staffs. One minister can be in charge of sermons, another specializes in home visitations, while another heads up the ministry of teaching.

There are educational dirctors, music directors and pastoral counselors who also operate clinics. In some cases there are even women preachers but these find it difficult to meet the requirement of being the husband of one wife.

Missionaries have to be experts in irrigation, social work, nutrition, contour plowing, construction, languages, etc. Missionaries have found that a lot of their work has been taken over by the Peace Corps. Some have found this gave them a little time to do such non-essential things as teaching the Bible.

Most of the activity in religion today is nothing more than keeping the machinery running. A lot of this organizational machinery is kept running long after its purpose has been forgotten.

The resultant mess that man has made of religion reveals the utter failure of this complicated mass of organizational machinery.

The simple solution seems to be to admit the failure, scrap the machinery, and turn the Lord’s business back over to the Lord!

(— Central Contender)

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