Thursday Theology: Why churches suck

It's pretty late in the day for my usual posting habit, but it has just been that kind of day. I took a brief look at writing this in the wee hours of the morning while working at the Crisis Cold Weather Shelter and decided that I just didn't have the mental energy for it. After getting the shelter put away this morning, I had a nice breakfast with a couple of the volunteers, spent a couple of hours winding down at home, and then managed a few hours of sleep.

Now I've been up for a few hours, had dinner, finished my book, and decided that I should probably just go ahead and force myself to write something. I think a big part of not wanting to write this is that it is a little depressing.

The gospel text from this week's schedule is John 2:13-22.
Honestly, after reading it you probably won't get the same depressing vibe that I do. I don't know what thoughts come to your mind with this text, but I can't help but think that things haven't changed much in 2,000 years. The Jews of Jesus's day had made the process of worship more important than the act of worship. Like many of today's churches, there might have been more to the following of rules about worship and profiting from the commerce of worship than there was about actually worshiping God.
I wonder what kind of table tossing Jesus would be doing in the "christian" churches of the US if he were to visit us.

This is supposed to be the Bible belt. On any given weekend, there are around 600 churches that gather for worship under the banner of Christianity in Springfield MO. Only about a dozen of those churches help in sheltering and serving the homeless and hungry of our community. 
It's odd that many of them will spend big bucks and invest time and trips to help people in other countries, but turn their backs on the people of our own community. I don't understand why there are so few pastors that would encourage church goers to actually serve people in our community.
I guess it's hard to recruit new members (that's church talk for generate more money) when you're offering a job of volunteering to mop floors and clean toilets at the shelter.

There are certainly churches that serve our community in other ways, but there are truly far too few that seem to be interested in doing anything that doesn't profit them in some way.

I really do find it to be a bit depressing.
It's probably a good thing that I'm no longer a preacher. I suck at the business of religion.

John