Column: What’s missing in the Church?

If you ever pay attention to church message boards, you’ve perhaps seen a variation of this common one:

“C H _ _ C H. What’s missing? U R.”

It’s hard to take church message boards seriously, but I suppose that’s a cute way to invite people to church.

There is something missing in church, but it has nothing to do with people in the community.

What’s absent in most churches is Scripture: the 66 books of the Bible where God has exclusively made Himself known to man.

In far too many places of worship, you don’t need a Bible to follow the pastor’s message.

You instead hear personal stories designed to make you laugh, cry or somehow “feel connected” to the speaker.

Maybe you hear the pastor’s take on social problems or current events in the news.

It’s so common that the average person has no idea that it’s wrong.

The world does not need clever stories about the pastor’s life and family, his political opinions or his latest jokes.

You can get comedy at a nightclub. You can “connect” with television talk show hosts. You can follow politics on your favorite news channel.

The world has plenty of that to offer.

The church exists for a different reason.

The Lord makes it plain what His people are supposed to do when they gather together.

Whatever else a church does, it is supposed to open a Bible and teach it so that the mind of God can be made known to men and women.

Jesus Christ said the church should continually be “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:20).

Early Christians “were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42).

The Bible tells pastors to “Preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2).

The apostle Paul said, “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

My friend, look around at today’s churches. Do they emphasize God’s Word to you?

Or do you get a concoction of entertainment, human philosophy, and self-help advice that isn’t much different from what a secular book could give to you?

Without clear Bible teaching and the call of Jesus Christ to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sin, the church is no different from the world-even if it gives a thin veneer of vague “God-talk” as it goes.

God’s people and our community need Bible teaching so they can understand God’s Word.

That is our only hope in this dark age.

If pastors won’t open the Bible and teach it, who will?

Don Green is the pastor of Truth Community Church at 4183 Mount Carmel Tobasco Road. His Bible teaching can be heard on “The Truth Pulpit” weeknights at 9 p.m. on The Source, 93.7 FM.