Here is a list of some of the advantages and disadvantages of organized religion.
Advantages:
A place of prayer and refuge.
A place where one can find a new network of friends.
A support group of people.
A place for community outreach and resources.
A place to get taught about scripture.
A place for growth and for a person to reach out to help others.
A place to hold community or personal events.
A place to send your children on Sunday’s.
A place to get help for various problems.
A place for someone to find their answers to some questions.
A resource to help a lot of people at one time.
Now, here is the list of the disadvantages of Organized religion:
Too big and too much red tape.
Too many programs that are not effective for everyone.
Too much favoritism of family members or long time members.
Too much gossip or back-biting.
Too much competition within the church.
Too much high-mindedness both inside and outside the church.
Too many self-righteous groups or groups that leave out some of the people due to their economical status-quo in a community.
Too much self promotion and showing off.
Forgetting about the small people and they fall through the cracks.
Not taking the time to talk to some of the people in need.
Too big and the smaller person doesn’t connect with the main person at the top.
Making it like a club status and everyone must meet a certain criteria to help or even fit in.
Too many judges and chiefs.
Most decisions come down through the board of directors of the Church.
I hopefully have captured both sides of the issue concerning this matter.
The real problems as you can see have to do with the dysfunctional elements in relation to the highly organized venue of the churches.
Although, I don’t believe that it was ever the intention of any one religion to be thus what they are, unfortunately it does happen due to various reasons.
Take for example any big corporation such as Fortune 500, At&T;, Kellogg’s, etc. what do you think your chances are of getting a complaint letter or any type of letter answered quickly, and by the founder of the corporation?
But somehow, we always manage to bash the church hard for having the same problems as these bigger corporations. This is due to our own expectations of how we believe a church should be and the people within the church should act. If they don’t, then we tend to alienate ourselves away from them.
Why, because we are dissatisfied with the services we received there.
We all do the same things, with grocery stores, we get angry and go shopping somewhere else.
We are all human and we all make mistakes. We all need to be more forgiving and helping and understanding of one another.
Too many of us are quick to walk away and not pray for one another.
It’s like the child who is playing with their playmate and suddenly gets angry at their playmate and grabs up their own toys and goes home.
Yes, we can all do that, but should we?
No, I don’t think that many of the organized religions are doing what they should be doing today, However, I don’t necessarily believe that not going, or running some place else is the answer.
I do think that this ongoing problems is what has created a greater number of more churches popping up. (That’s all we need is another organized religion, as if we don’t have enough already).
There are several scriptures that come to my mind in all this mix:
“Upon this Rock I will build my church”.
“Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together”.
“Get the log out of your own eye before you take the splinter out of someone else’s eye”.
We all must work out our own soul salvation and we are only accountable for ourselves and whatever we did nor did not do that we should have been doing.
Again, intentions for church building get lost in the mix of becoming bigger and more highly organized. However, smaller churches also have their own set of problems too.
I myself, enjoy going to church and miss it when I don’t go. In my own life, I have experienced both large and small congregations. I have experienced all types and forms of faiths. I don’t agree with a lot of faiths. The purpose of this article was not to discuss that issue.
I just wanted to show both sides of the issue and let you decide for yourself.
The fact is, where ever you have people, it won’t be problem free because no one on the face of this earth is perfect and no one will do anything quite according to your own set of values.
What the scripture has spoken to my own heart, is that we ourselves are a church and a witness. Also, if we fulfill the greatest commandments that Jesus has spoken out: “Love the Lord they God with all thy heart” and “Love one another as I have loved and gave my life for you by fulfilling all these two commandments, you will fulfill all the laws. Think about it, if we would put God first and not other things, such as money, the Internet, Television, and think of our brother, even our adversaries first and instead of ourselves, it would make for a better world.
