Media preachers and big stage pulpit showmen are like crack.

They offer a feel-good escape from reality to those who feel otherwise detached …

Often causing a downward spiral of more isolation with ever more dependence on their feel-good “fix.”

It rarely ends well, except for the “spiritual” huckster.

In contrast, real life, real faith and real church are played out between real people in real community – where we have real opportunity to work through real issues and find real spiritual health and maturity …

Together, one with another.

It’s not always easy …

But it’s always our choice.

Don’t settle for counterfeits.

If it’s cool, hip or seeker friendly …

It ain’t worship.

Because true worship …

Is not about us.

In the New Testament, “worship” occurs when we respond to God’s ongoing sovereign presence by living ongoing lives of reverence and obedience …

Which might, at times, properly invoke emotions.

Pagan worship, however, starts by manipulating emotions to “usher in” a false sense of God’s presence through special effects and special “leaders” at special gatherings.

It is a concept foreign to how the New Testament says God’s people are to function together as His church.

Unfortunately, there’s way too much pagan worship, and too little New Testament worship, in our “churches” these days.

When people are used to build up a ministry, rather than the ministry being used to build up people …

It’s no longer ministry.

Making Jesus all about that one thing,

Which happens to be your thing,

Denies His Lordship over all things,

Including the many other things,

He does through others.

The Great Commission isn’t about coming in for prepared messages …

But going forth as prepared people.

I never wore skinny jeans or cool glasses …

Or had an elevated stage with a smoke machine, a hip band, brass-tinged collection plates and comfy pews for the feel-good masses.

I didn’t peddle trans-Biblical messages like “deeper life,” “easy believism,” or “seeker friendly” …

Nor did I seek – as is common these days – notoriety through books, blogs and conferences about “how to” on things I never made work first in my own life and hometown.

Instead, my life has been about simply going – without pretense or fanfare – wherever Jesus sends me.

Often it was to the fringes of polite society in my own county to help break bonds of darkness through the raw, unmitigated gospel of repentance and Christ’s Kingdom rule.

So I went to places others feared to go …

Where those who are lost and know it live broken lives.

And like Jesus commands in Luke 10, I never brought a budget, a branded “ministry,” a title, an agenda or a program.

Instead, I learned to embrace, respect and honor – in their own communities – those I encountered …

Because “love,” I have found, is such an overused word these days.

So I’d go – simply, just as I am – carrying an unadorned message of grace, forgiveness, repentance and redemption …

But in the authority of Christ’s name and the power of His Word.

It was enough:

Lives were changed …

Disciples made …

And simple, indigenous churches emerged – without building campaigns, ministry teams, sound equipment or marketing plans – in living rooms and coffee shops and other places where relationships naturally happen.

I’m not claiming total success each and every time I’d go.

Trust me, I made many mistakes. But by doing it, I learned …

And despite my shortcomings God nonetheless brought forth amazing fruit and built His church more often than not.

As His Kingdom took root and local leaders emerged, I’d then stay in touch as an ongoing resource but otherwise recede back to my own local fellowship …

So others could come forth and express Christ in their own wonderfully unique ways that reached their own communities.

It cost almost nothing:

I gave of my own labor and resources …

Rather than live off of, or peddle for donations, those God sent me to reach.

But this I learned:

Although Christ expresses Himself in different ways in different cultures and contexts, and He calls us each to different things …

His Kingdom is never about building our own kingdom.

Forgive us, Lord, for what we’ve done with your mercy and grace …

Because it’s not about us.