Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Truth

For mother's day, my mom asked that I join her for church in San Francisco. Of course, I agreed, but had no idea what she had in mind, or why she wanted to go to the city for church. As I was digging into the issue, she mentioned she wanted to go because she had heard the music was wonderful. The choir was an awesome gospel choir and she wanted to go see them live.

Sunday morning rolled around and my family, Cameron and I left for the city. We parked at Union Square and walked to Glide Memorial Church. The service didn't start until 11:00 o'clock, but a line began forming to get into the church at around 10:00 o'clock. I was amazed that there was a street full of people waiting for an hour to get into church.

When we finally got into the sanctuary the placed filled up within minutes with about 2,000 people and several people had to go into the overflow room they had set up. I was blown away to see the energy inside of the church. The band began playing and the choir came out and started singing songs. They sounded great, they all had great voices, and the saxaphone and brass instruments were awesome. But, as I began listening to the music my heart sunk and started breaking. One of the songs they sang had a verse that said, "I have a god who's on my side." My thought was, what do you mean "a god", we have THE GOD on our side. The rest of the songs they sang never even mentioned God or Jesus. Yet, all of the people in this church were standing up arms raised up, singing full of joy. I was so confused.

Sharon Stone, the actress was a guest at the church on Sunday morning. She was there with her family and they were all getting baptised. They got up on stage, and during the baptism, the pastor's were saying, "you are now baptised in peace." What does that mean baptised in peace?

As the service was ending they put up a sign with the Islam symbol, the Jewish star, and the Cross.

The entire 2 hours I was at this church my heart was hurting so bad. I saw real, genuine people, singing to someone they didnt even know. People hearing what they thought was truth, but really wasn't. There was no scripture quoted. God is not a god, he is THE GOD. It made me sad, because the people there are trying to seek and find someone or something, but they are not being lead in the right direction. How are they going to know what they are hearing or how they are living is wrong if they are not hearing REAL TRUTH? Or being helped in seeking real truth?

It made me realize, that we as Christians, need to be more intentional about sharing our faith. We need to be more intentional about speaking truth, and living out truth. I don't want this to come across as me being a close minded person. I am not. I love everyone. But, I am now fully aware that the world really does need the REAL truth spoken.

I went on their website this morning to see what their religious views were. Here is what it said, The Glide Bible Study Group is not in pursuit of the definite
interpretation of the Bible, nor does it claim to be the holders of God's ultimate truth. All opinions are respected and appreciated; the group learns and teaches as one single practice.
Through the contribution of every one, we may get somewhere near God's message and guidance.

THIS IS TRUTH:
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bristol, I am encouraged about your Faith and how much your love for God is GROWING! reading this made me want to have a stronger relationship with God... and I was honestly moved and encouraged when i read this! you are definitely a strong woman of God and that's what i love about you! that's not the only reason though..you're just awesome in general! love you! :)