The Gathering
Why is church such a frustrating, ineffective experience for so many sincere believers?
Why does the church seem to repel the very people that Jesus attracted? Why is it, that for all the dollars spent on buildings, clergy salaries, and denominational hierarchies, the institutional church seems to remain so ineffective and powerless to change our communities, let alone genuinely impact our own lives?
The simple answer is that, for too many centuries, our institutional structures have been based on a lie. We have been sold the notion that the leadership hierarchies, the clergy system, and the auditorium-based cycles of Sunday meetings are what God instructs us to do in Scripture.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Revelation
YOU CAN UNDERSTAND REVELATION. It is not a complex serious of riddles, but a simple, powerful message of hope for all believers of all generations.
Revelation was written to first-century believers who were suffering for their faith. For them, it may have seemed like Jesus was not the King after all, and that God was not in control. Rome seemed to be winning. In images understood at the time, God spoke to their perplexity, fears and sorrows. He assured them that Jesus was King, that history was under control, and that they would share in the victory already won.
That simple message has been confused and buried under endless speculations about nuclear bombs, microchips, tattoos and all manner of mystical calculations. These wild speculations have universally neglected to take into account the circumstances of those first readers to whom it was addressed, and the literary genre in which it was written.
God was writing to bless, not to scare; to give hope and encouragement, not to create confusion; and to strengthen for daily living, not to make us preoccupied with every new scary story or technological development.
