Players Or Spectators?

Are you a player or merely an attendee?

“Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” [Hebrews 10:24-25]

In the scope of a church gathering, are you a player or merely an attendee?

Typically, a football game is made up of players and spectators. But did you know that the way a football game is conducted – minus all the spectators – is a lot like the way a church meeting should be conducted?  I don’t mean with a handful of players and thousands of spectators.  I mean, just within the scope of the players, coaches and the folks that literally support the team by tending to their wounds and bringing out water or Gatoraid.  In that environment, the spectators are really the outsiders.  They have little impact (if any) on the players themselves and no impact on the outcome of the game.  And so it is with most congregations today: lots of “outsiders”, false Christians, and few if any players… just the team owner (the pastor) and a few coaches (deacons & elders) perhaps.  If there are any players present, they are not allowed to play, or they are constrained to play in roles that have little if anything to do with the real game. 

In the realm of biblical Christianity the “real game” is all about discipleship, evangelism and ministering to one another. But in a conventional church these real players are made to sit on the bench by clergy that seem to know little about true biblical ecclesiology (how to do church). — RM Kane