One of the many reasons I don’t go to a regular church service around my home on a Sunday, is that I find that there is no room for genuine honesty or vulnerability in them.

What do I mean by that? Well, when people of the world ask ‘how are you?’, the knee jerk response from someone should always be ‘I’m fine’, because no one really wants to know whether things are really not good for you, because the question is usually in passing from one’s acquaintances, and there is usually no time (nor is it socially appropriate) to intimately confess the real issues or problems we face to someone who doesn’t even really have the will to get involved in this way; it’s just too deep, and has become culturally inappropriate. Also, culturally speaking, nor would we want others to hear about our weaknesses and struggles, for we put on a brave face for the so called benefit of society, not willing to either embarrass ourselves or our loved ones around us. Simply put, it’s just not the done thing.

Yet, it is my belief that this should not be the case in a church scenario. Churches should be places where we can each be intimate, deep, vulnerable and honest with each other. Instead of idle chit chat over coffee after the well oiled machine of a service, they should be places where we can trust others with our confessed secrets, where we can seek prayer for healing and deliverance from people who are eager to help in this way. Instead, it seems (around here at least) that the world has crept into mainstream churches in so many ways, this being one of them. The service might run like clockwork, the worship band slick and talented, the sermon on point; but if there is no room for people to bring their brokenness and tearful hurts, if there is no room for things to be off the cuff in terms of people bringing testimony, or even having the freedom to manifest spirits that need literal removal, then that church is not doing its main job it’s called to do, in my opinion.

How much more effective would the church be if people weren’t always trying to hide behind some kind of facade in order to appear to be something they are really not? Projection of appearance is a stronghold that needs destroying in church culture, for it is fake, and blesses no one in the long run, even if it is in line with cultural appropriateness. Brokenness and vulnerability always lead to real repentance and true humility, speaking from my own experience. Why then is this practice not encouraged in the churches? It is even actively discouraged, just from the way the whole thing is set up! People must wear their Sunday best faces, and project that everything is well with their souls. Even if this is how it is for some people, then those people should be seeking out and helping those who are not in that place. It is like this in the churches mainly because the Spirit is quenched and prevented from doing His restorative healing work, and the ‘teams’ that seem to head up the service do not want anything to happen that is either ‘spontaneous’ or out of their control. To have this happen would feel like failure on their part, as they attempt to maintain a ‘safe space’ where people can be sanitised to speak safely about the weather with each other, rather than wrestling through struggles in faith, or demonic torment etc. This is just another way how organised church gets it so, so wrong.

Let me encourage everyone reading to themselves be vulnerable in a church situation, to expose your weaknesses to those who profess a true faith within the church body, testifying humbly of how the Lord has brought you to this point, and seeking the need for prayer over it, for it is in our weaknesses that the Lord is actually glorified, and everyone can see His transformative strength working through them.

I promise you, you will see a change in the church for the much better, for when people there realise that they can also be weak and vulnerable without being judged, and instead helped in both prayer and action, the Spirit is allowed to sweep through the congregation and do amazing things, and people get released, physically and spiritually, possibly even financially too, for the spirit of generosity should rest on true believers who care about others who are weaker and less able to pay the bills etc.

Prove me wrong! And if I am wrong about your particular church on this issue, then let me tell you that that church is in fact spiritually dead, and is not worth being faithful to or investing your time into.