I get more of the Spirit of God out of Gunsmoke and Bonanza than i ever have outta church. Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe working together, helping each other, ready to lay their lives down for each other. Some poor dirt farmer steals a cow from the Ponderosa because his family is hungry. By the end of the show, Ben is giving the repentant farmer a small herd to help him with.
Matt Dillon. Kitty, Doc and Festus working in harmony to restore peace to Dodge City after a disaster, caring for each other, going the extra mile, close knit concerned deeply about one another's welfare. Chester loses his wife to be, and you cant hold the tears of compassion back. The others are there to aid and comfort him. Why? Because they love him.
I thought that's what church was going to be when we got saved. What a devastating blow when we discovered that it was NOT. We were horrified!
Meadow Lark Lemon on one of the early Bill Gaither videos remarked after witnessing the love and tears and anointing of God in the room of various singers, 'I thought that this is what church was going to be.' Then he said it again 'I thought that this is what church was going to be...I'm an evangelist and I have been to a lot of churches and met a lot of ugly people...' I believe a reformation and repentance is order.