living Spirituality...

"As a result of what is too often the large gap between words and actions, some have become extremely suspicious of whether there is even a link between the words Christian and spirituality. In engaging with those who call themselves Christians, they observe hollow and superficial ideologies and practical lives that fail to reflect the face of Christ. A lamentable lack of the reality of love, of authenticity, and the "real" become reasons for avoiding all things and people labeled Christian. This skeptical and increasingly cynical audience still seeks after spirituality, but it begins to abandon any conception of the compatibility of Christian and spirituality.
The more a church functions as an institution preaching its own survival, the less opportunity there is for people to hear the gospel, to experience community life, or to find a loving spiritual home. Entertainment may be there, and the double negative: all or none of the answers to life's important questions could be there, but the reality of holistic, interactive and interpretive living spirituality is acutely absent. Cold, mechanical, forced religiosity or warm, fuzzy superficiality will rightly bring forth suspicion, apathy, ad rejection by those who have valid concerns about what is authentic and true.
Even as Christians today desperately strive for the authentic, they have never been so captured by that which is inauthentic. Thwarted by "shopping" and "shuffle" spirituality, cultural materialism, and the syrupy sweetness of comfortable idealism, living spirituality becomes a mirage, and Christian crediblility wanes."

Comments

[curtis]

sad but true, at least in my experience...

[ShaneBertou]

Over the years I've really struggled with a similar sentiment regarding the church. I've also come to find that so many believers feel exactly the same way, but their feelings go unspoken.

Why is it, do you think, that so many believers have such a lack-luster impression of "church?" Do we all need our hearts re-tuned? Or are we experiencing some sort of divine discontent?