May I take this time to welcome all of you who are reading my blog for the month of April 2012. I pray that the words you are about to read will not only richly bless you but will also challenge you in your walk with the Lord! You may have wondered why I would title my blog in the way I did for this month. You may think I am being pious by the giving my blog this title or that I am trying to be condescending to others. Actually both of those thoughts are the farthest thing from the truth of what I am trying to say.

If you have walked with the Lord for any amount of time, you have certainly either heard a preacher use the term C&Eer’s from the pulpit or other Christians, maybe even yourself, use this term. The term C&Eers refers to those people who only grace the doors of the church either on Christmas or Easter. As we all know, this month the church is celebrating the glorious celebration of Easter; which I believe is the most glorious day for all Christian’s and a very good day to be in church. Most churches, hopefully will have more attendance on Easter Sunday than they do on any other Sunday. It seems that people come out of the wood work on Easter Sunday. Most pastor’s would say of those who only attend church on Christmas and Easter, where have you been all the other Sundays!!

The Scripture most Christians use, who regularly attend church on the other Sundays besides Easter, to base this on is found in Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  The reason people gathered together back in Biblical days, as we do today, was for the purpose of public worship. I grew up as a Catholic, and a Latino Catholic to top that off, and going to church was never an option for us kids. We wouldn’t dare to think of telling our parents that going to mass was boring or that we had a baseball game to play that Sunday, or that the priest didn’t speak to us, out of the fear of the back side of a hand coming our way. It was Sunday and you went to mass, end of argument!! The sad truth is that too many people today who call themselves Christian, seem to come up with all kinds of excuses as to why they don’t come to church on a regular basis, and most of them are exactly that; excuses and poor ones to say the least. Yet for some reason even those who seem to have every excuse in the book for not attending church on a regular basis, seem to make no excuse for attending church on Easter, why you may ask. I think some of the blame lies with the church itself.

There is biting, gossiping, critical hearts, and many more things, too numerous to mention, going on in the church today. And even if people come to church, they hear mostly feel good messages; messages that tell them everything but the truth; the fact that they are in desperate need of the Lord in their life!!! I believe the church today has unfortunately looked more to feed the people too many banana splits with every sweet topping one could imagine and not enough broccoli or dare I even go so far to say, lima beans ( I hate lima beans)

The truth of the matter is that those of us who call ourselves Christians and who regularly attend church on Sundays need to clean up how we are at our churches. Hear me when I say it is not about your child liking the youth pastor or making sure there are plenty of games to play and less preaching going on. It’s not about you being so overwhelmed that you couldn’t possibly volunteer to help in Sunday School or wherever help is needed. It’s not about you getting out of church in time to watch your favorite team play on TV or that you just can’t sit still that long. It’s not about you being uncomfortable with praying, serving others in the body of Christ or having a genuine move of the Holy Spirit in the church service.

Yes,  far too many people today seem to find any and every excuse not to attend church but the fact that they still come on Christmas and Easter tells me that they still sense a need in their life for the Lord. What is it that we the church are giving to them when they do come or what do they see?

I believe when we who regularly attend church begin to make it a point that we are always encouraging each other, as the writer of Hebrews says we are to; that we always genuinely love one another; that we consistently thirst for more of the move of the Holy Spirit in our church services not just cute stories; that our youth are not the ones who make the decision as to what church the parents will attend, then when those C&Eer’s walk through our church doors, they will long to come back the next Sunday and every  Sunday after that because they witnessed the risen Jesus Christ alive and working in the people. That is the prayer for me and my church; I hope it is for you as well. We serve a Lord who is alive and well; may people see that in every one of our lives!!! Have a blessed Easter my dear friend; I will see you in church!!!