There they were.  The band was playing their loud music.  Everyone was getting down and doing the boogie for Jesus clapping their hands.  “Jesus, we love you.  Holy Jesus.  Yeah, holy Jesus.”  They were singing.

Then, the doors were shoved open.  Jesus stomped in.  He was cracking the whip on the floor, and He was throwing over the church pews.  People stopped singing and started screaming, and they ran out of the church.  Jesus threw over the offering and said, “My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

“Now wait a minute,” the pastor said, “we spend the first three hours of every church service getting down and doing the boogie for you.  We feed the homeless on the streets.  We do missions trips, and we have small groups.  How dare You call us a den of thieves.”

Jesus starred him in the eye and said, “You rob people of the gospel.  You rob people of the truth.  You rob people of wisdom.  You rob people of love.  You rob people of friendship.  You rob people of fellowship.  You rob people of salvation.  You rob people of prayer.  Most importantly, you rob people of Me.”

“Come on, Jesus,” the pastor said.  “You watched us as we were getting down and doing the boogie for you.”

Jesus replied, “You get down and do the boogie not for Me but for yourselves.  Your church services are about entertaining people and not preaching the Word.  Many of the people getting down and doing the boogie on Sundays do not obey my commandments.  Many of the people that you entertain hate people, and they hate My words.  They hate Me.  They are not here to have a relationship with Me or to hear the Word of God.  They are here thinking that they are fooling people that they are of Me.  You have made it your mission to give them what they desire.”

“But at least You see us feeding the homeless on the streets,” said the pastor.

“Yes,” said Jesus.  “You do that.  You keep them homeless.  You think that you are doing a great work by just feeding them, but you do not share my word with them nor do you help them get a better life.  Then you have those who attend and give to this church that you refuse to help.  You only help those who you think can benefit you.”

“You have seen our many mission trips,” said the pastor.

“I have,” said Jesus, “but your mission on these trips are about you and your church and not about the gospel.  They say that they want to help those in far away lands, but they refuse to help those in need in their own church.  Many go on these trips to have photo ops of themselves, yet they hate those who they see every day.  You use these mission trips as vacations for themselves funded by the church.  Instead of helping those in these far lands, they take their resources from them and use it for themselves.”

“But we also have small groups,” said the pastor.

“You do have small groups,” said Jesus.  “You say that the small groups help people connect to the church.  The problem with your small groups is that it is just that: small groups.  There are no friendships.  There is no fellowship.  There is no discipleship.  There is no biblical teaching.  It is just meeting once a week, and then you do not meet until the next meeting.”

“Do you have anything else bad to say about my church?” the pastor asked.

Jesus continued, “You have banned friendships in this church.  You banned people from having fellowship saying that Sunday morning and small groups is fellowship.  You make up reasons to keep people for meeting in My name saying that it is a sin.  You listen to your pastor buddies about how to run a church instead of listening to me.  You have all kinds of ministries for families, youth, children and young adults, but you hate the elderly, couples without children, and you hate those who are single.  Not only do you hate those who are single, you publicly mock them.  You also banned single men and women from getting together putting single men with men and single women with women.  Because I am single and never had married, you also hate Me and publicly mock Me.  As for the elderly, they are not the scum of the church but the heart of it.  They have seen much happen through their years and have great wisdom.  Let me remind you that many people you read about in the Bible did great things in their elderly ages, but you refuse to read the Bible.  Therefore, you are not aware of this.  You see certain people as useless to me, but I died and gave my life so that all can have life and have it more abundantly.  We created all man and woman in our image.  You see certain people as scum, you see Me and My Father and the Holy Spirit as scum.  You say that a great genocide must be done to vanquish these people, but you also vanquishing Me.  As I have shown you, this church is a den of thieves.”

The pastor replied, “You will never tell me what to do and how to run my church.  I run this church my way and only my way.”

Jesus was cast out of the church.  He continued on His way.