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When I was younger, one of my first ministry experiences was to lead the youth worship team. One of the first things I did as the newly appointed leader was to set the standards for everyone to comply with. The standard was simple, really—or so I thought. Let me run down some of the rules I had set to be part of the youth worship ministry:
- You have to lead a small group.
- You have to read four chapters a day of the Bible.
- If you can’t speak in tongues, you aren’t moving in the Spirit.
- Being late for practice means no playing for two weeks.
- We have to worship as a team once a week.
- We have to all have the knowledge of basic note reading.
The list could go on, honestly, but you get the point. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t being very inviting. All right; I was being very legalistic. But what would surprise you is how passionate and zealous I was for God and how I expected everyone else to follow in my zeal. But no matter how sincere I was, it didn’t deny the fact that my heart was sincerely wrong.
Sadly, the church is full of these over-zealous Christians who love the idea of “narrow gates” and “denying the self.” While setting standards for worship teams might make lesser of a fuss, imagine what it would be like if people actually added more weight to church membership or even salvation than there really is.
As wild as the idea might sound, maybe it’s not that crazy. You’ve probably heard people imply or even bluntly say that if you don’t tithe, lift your hands in worship, memorise scriptures, do exegesis when reading the Bible and so on, you’re not Christian enough. While there’s nothing wrong about these things and God does encourage and even command us to do such things, when we make rules the focus and even add to the rules, we miss the point.
So many Christians today want the church to be an exclusive club with only the “finest and brightest.” Well, that’s not what God wants. God makes Himself available to all. Romans 3:22–24 says, “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (ESV).
Believing isn’t rocket science, and God doesn’t mean it to be, because God wants everyone to have the ability to approach Him. Jesus never meant for the church to be an exclusive club of “super” Christians, but to be a home for the broken sinners to gather and experience the healing touch through God’s wonderful presence.
