Yesterday, I was reading a book that one of our college students gave me. I was through but only a few pages and a couple of sentences started to stick out to me. They made me stop and think…so much so…I wanted to spend some time on them with my blog.

“Religious extremists of all faiths have perverted the best of our traditions.”- When I read that I went…woah…but it is true. Extreme religion has perverted true Gospel. Extreme teaching on money has perverted generosity. Extreme judgementalism has perverted the church. I preached a couple of weeks back on being “Exposed” before God…what if we were not just wrapped in a coating of religion but “Immersed” in His love? If, you have been hurt or confused by religious extremes within the church…such as hyper pentecostalism, over the top charismania, or judgemental fundamentalism…I want to let you know that Jesus is not about all those things…those are man made extremes that have stolen our very purity of the cross.

“A Generation that stops all the complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church they dream it can be.”- It’s easy to point fingers and talk about how bad the church is and why it is not growing in America…or worse yet…give up on it entirely. We have so much of this going on right now in America…and it is happening especially within our youth. It’s easy to give up on something that is unhealthy, but it takes special people to make it healthy again. Are you willing to become the church?