'Church in Hard Places'

 There's a trendy saying now which is about 'church in hard places'. Just imagine however that you live in a place that the 'church' describes as a 'hard place'. That's not the most flattering of terms, and is unlikely to attract you to church.

The church is an outpost of heaven in a world destined for destruction. Wherever the local church is, is going to be a hard place. Hardship for the gospel isn't necessarily economic hardship. Spiritual hardship isn't synonymous with being skint.

In fact, the seed of God's word that falls on rich places finds it to be full of thorns and thistles due to the 'deceitfulness of riches'. Jesus blessed the poor and pronounced woe to the rich, so maybe the church 'experts' have got the 'hard places' wrong.

As James said- why do we show favouritism to the rich when they're the ones who oppress us? God has chosen those who are poor materially to be rich in faith. I'm not denying that church is harder in some places than others.

I just think that wherever we serve, we should do so with joy, rather than some miserable assumption that our context is harder than the next. That sounds like we feel we've been given a raw deal, or else that we're some kind of 'super Christians'- both of which are bad attitudes to have.