{"id":2707,"date":"2014-12-17T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T18:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/?p=2707"},"modified":"2014-12-17T13:49:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T18:49:00","slug":"shallow-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/shallow-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Shallow Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of late, I&#8217;ve been dealing in my own mind with the sillyness that is the American church.\u00a0 We are ridiculously petty and self-absorbed.\u00a0 Like in the days of the early Church, today in many parts of the world, persecution exists and is running rampant.\u00a0 Just last week, I heard of four children in Baghdad, under the age of fifteen, who were beheaded because they refused to denounce Jesus to ISIS terrorists.\u00a0 Seriously?\u00a0 <em>Kids<\/em> who <em>died<\/em> for their faith?\u00a0 Would <em>I<\/em> do that?\u00a0 Would my children?\u00a0 Are we too tied up with important stuff like getting our feelings hurt because of the way someone spoke to us or because someone simply did something we didn&#8217;t like?\u00a0 Are we too concerned with getting a good parking space, flipping off the driver who cut us off or other earth-shaking &#8220;First-world <em>problems<\/em>&#8221; to worry about serious spiritual growth that would result in a boldness that would allow us to die for Jesus if called upon?<\/p>\n<p>God help us in this crazy world.\u00a0 God help this crazy institution we call the American church. \u00a0May it not come to the point of requiring persecution to wake us up to the realities of the spiritual realm.\u00a0 May we not have to be threatened with death in order to get serious about our walk with and commitment to Christ.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t hope for or wish for persecution.\u00a0 On the other hand, if it did (or does) come, the Church would undoubtedly be strengthened almost immediately.\u00a0 Would you be a part of it?\u00a0 For more of my thoughts on the subject, watch my message from Sunday:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/114777090\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/114777090\">John &#8211; Portrait of a Savior, Part 39<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/gatheringchattanooga\">The Gathering<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twttr_buttons\"><div class=\"twttr_twitter\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?text=Shallow+Church\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-via=\"\" data-hashtags=\"\"  data-size=\"default\" data-url=\"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/shallow-church\/\"  data-related=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of late, I&#8217;ve been dealing in my own mind with the sillyness that is the American church.\u00a0 We are ridiculously petty and self-absorbed.\u00a0 Like in the days of the early Church, today in many parts of the world, persecution exists and is running rampant.\u00a0 Just last week, I heard of four children in Baghdad, under&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"Shallow Church - Of late, I've been dealing in my own mind with the sillyness that is the American church.  We are ridiculously petty and self-absorbed.","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[81,685,556,624,335,450],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-HF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1458,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/homebiblestudy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":0},"title":"A California couple is being\u2026","date":"September 22, 2011","format":"video","excerpt":"A California couple is being fined for conducting a Bible study in their homes.\u00a0 Admittedly, it is a rather large Bible study on Sundays with up to 50 people.\u00a0 The city has determined it should considered a church and, thus, should apply for permits and provide ample parking and handicap\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Bible Study\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/pray-for-china\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":1},"title":"Pray for China","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Voice of the Martyrs and China Aid Association are encouraging Christians to wear \"Pray for China\" wristbands as the opening ceremonies approach, according to OneNewsNow. Reports of increased house church raids and imprisonment of Christians have trickled through government lines in a pre-Olympics crackdown.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Christianity&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":112,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/catalyst-conference-day-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":2},"title":"Catalyst Conference, Day 1","date":"October 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I really don't know that I can adequately put into words all that I've experienced today.\u00a0 After a very challenging day getting down here and actually getting to the conference, I understood why things prior to the conference would come with such difficulty:\u00a0 God had some radical things to teach\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Church&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/community-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":3},"title":"Community Day","date":"June 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This Saturday we have one of our biggest events of the year at MBC.\u00a0 Community Day is a massive yard sale (perhaps the biggest so far), combined with games, bouncy things, food and sweat...lots and lots of sweat. This year, we're raising money that will go to our upcoming mission\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Church&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":489,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/what-does-organic-church-really-look-like-anyway\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":4},"title":"What Does Organic Church Really Look Like, Anyway?","date":"September 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Thinking a lot about church lately.\u00a0 Yeah, I know - it's my job.\u00a0 But I'm thinking more in terms of reformation and growth.\u00a0 You know, what we're really supposed to be...and be about.\u00a0 At our church, we're in a place where we're re-thinking how things are done - What's important.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Church&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":673,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/the-gathering-in-a-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":2707,"position":5},"title":"The Gathering&#8230;in a year.","date":"November 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I had someone ask me this week where I hope The Gathering will be in a year.\u00a0 It didn't take me long to come up with a few things I hope to see this church being in the coming year: 1. Strong disciples. That is something every church intends to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Christian Living&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2710,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}