What's wrong with the Church

Just over a week ago, I had the opportunity to preach in one of our local churches. I always look forward to that experience each time I get the invitation, but I must admit that since I no longer serve as a pastor, the practice of sermon preparation has suffered. I do miss that weekly discipline, but I love what I am doing.
What is unusual is that the last time I filled the pulpit in this church I wrote what I thought was one of my better sermons. Unlike most of my sermons that focus on a text and the exposition of that text, this one had three texts, and of course, three points! There was no poem at the end, however. The points were: 1)the Church in the West today has lost its cultural relevance -most of society is not interested in what we are doing as long as we don't bother them. They are not necessarily against us and are willing for us to have church for us; they are just not interested. (scripture- Paul's statement "I become all things to all men that I might by all means save some." 2) We have lost our relevance because we have lost our mission. We thought our mission was to get people to come to church. No, our mission is to connect people with Christ. Getting them to come to church is too much about us and not enough about Jesus.(scriptures -pick one II Cor 5:19, Mt. 28:19-20, Acts 1:8, John 20:22)and 3)We have lost our mission because we have lost our first love. (Revelation 2:4) We have ignored the relationship aspect of salvation in favor of the performance. We have forgotten how to love Jesus more each day because we have neglected our relationship with him.

I had the opportunity to tweak this message and preach it four or five other times.
One time I used Jesus experience with the woman at the well in John 4, to talk about our mission and cultural relevance. It is my conviction that when we serve others (outside the church) in Jesus' name, seeking to improve their lives, we will not be irrelevant.

This most recent message, I followed up on the Revelation 2 passage, to talk about spiritual renewal. That will be my topic in the nest post.