Going to Church

At Harding the topic of being a Christian and believing in God, but not going to church seemed to come up alot. There were alot of reasons: I go to chapel and Bible class everyday anyway, they´re too big and I don´t feel involved, I don´t get anything out of it, it´s too hypocritical etc. It kind of surprised me to hear some of the same (and to me very American) arguments come up here. Francisco and I were debating church and essentially organized religion. He said that it´s believing in God and being a good Christian and living your life accordingly that matter. The church is hypocritical, doesn´t really promote change, and is essentially the opium of the people. I agree with most of what he said. The churches here and in the States have alot of problems. I agree that it´s not about having an expensive building and an established hierarchy, and telling people things are bad, but not doing anything to change them. The difference is in what you do with that. To me, that´s all the more reason we need to be proactive in the church and work to improve it. If it´s not lining up with God´s desire for his church, we need to change it, not abandon it.
It´s like human rights here in Guatemala, it´s a pretty messed up situation which we could decide to have nothing to do with. But instead of giving up on it because of it´s problems, there are people working to try to make things better, even if it´s a slow messy problem. The point is, you can´t do it alone, you´ve got to have support and other people helping you. That´s one thing that´s so important about church, people meeting and working together. Just as believing in the importance of human rights (and even trying to improve them, but doing it alone) isn´t going to change anything, so believing in God and even doing what´s right (but doing it alone) isn´t the way to change the world. We need help and support and the church provides that.
I feel obligated to mention at this point that for all my talk about the importance of going to church, I´ve only actually gone twice since I got to Guatemala. Just wanted to put that out there in the open...