The Intrusive Word, Preaching to the Unbaptized

Greetings All,

I like stories. I do.  Not fiction, but stories that are true.  And I hope you like them as well, since this week's"thought"  is a story.  A true story.  One that is a little humorous, a little sad, and a little challenging as well. It comes to you from William Willimon and is taken from the preface of his book, "The Intrusive Word, Preaching to the Unbaptized."  Enjoy.


     

     "In my last congregation, we decided that we needed to grow. We voted to launch a program of evangelism... You know what that means. It's the, "We had better go out and get new members of we'll die" syndrome..  Our church had begun a two-decade decline in membership, so we figured that a little church-growth strategy was in order.  We studied a program from our denomination telling us how to get new members. Among other things, the church-growth program advocated a system of door-to-door visitation. So we organized ourselves into groups of two and, on an appointed Sunday afternoon, we set out to visit, and invite people to our church.

     The teams went out, armed with packets of pamphlets describing our congregation, our denomination, and fliers portraying me, the smiling, accessible pastor, inviting people to our church. Each team was given a map with their assigned street. Helen and Gladys were given a map. They were clearly told to go down Summit Drive and to TURN RIGHT. That's what they were told. I heard the team leader tell them, "You go down Summit Drive and turn right. Do you hear me, Helen? That's down Summit Drive and turn right."  But Helen and Gladys, both approaching eighty, after lifetimes of teaching elementary school, were better at giving directions than receiving them. Thy turned left, venturing down into the housing projects to the west of Summit Drive...  [They] proceeded to evangelize the wrong neighborhood, and thereby ran the risk of evangelizing the wrong people.

     Late that afternoon, each team returned to the church to make their reports. Helen and Gladys had only one interested person to report -- a woman named Verleen. Nobody on their spurious route was interested in visiting our church, nobody but Verleen. She lived with her two children in a three-room-apartment in the projects, we were told. Although she had never been to a church in her life, Verleen wanted to visit ours. This is what you get, I said to myself, when you don't follow directions. This is what you get when you won't do what the pastor tells you to do. You get a woman from the projects named Verleen.

The next Sunday, Helen and Gladys proudly presented Verleen at the 11:00 service, along with her two feral-looking children.  Verleen liked the service so much she said that she wanted to attend the Women's Thursday Morning Bible Study.  On Thursday, Verleen appeared, proudly clutching her new Bible, a gift from Helen, the first Bible Verleen had ever seen, much less owned. I was leading the study on the prescribed reading for the coming Sunday, Luke 4, the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. "Have any of you ever been faced with temptation and, with Jesus' help, resisted?" I asked the group after presenting my material. "Have any of you refused some temptation because of your Christian commitment?"  One of the women told about how, just the week before, there  was some confusion in the supermarket checkout line, and before she knew it, she was standing in the parking lot with a loaf of bread she hadn't paid for.  "At first I thought, 'why should I pay for it? They have enough money here as it is.' But then I thought, 'No, you are a Christian.' So I went back in the store and paid them for that loaf of bread."  I made some approving comment.

     It was then that Verleen spoke up. "A couple years ago, I was into cocaine really big. You know what that's like!  You know how that stuff makes you crazy.  Well, anyway, my boyfriend, not the one I got now, the one who was the daddy of my first child, that one, well, we knocked over a gas station one night.  Got two hundred dollars out of it.  It was as simple as taking candy from a baby.  Well, my boyfriend, he says to me, "Let's knock off that Seven-eleven store down on the corner.'  And something in me, it says, 'No, I held up that gas station with you, but I ain't going to hold up no convenience store.'  He beat the hell out of me, but I still said, 'No.'  It felt great to say 'No,' cause that's the only time in my life I ever said 'No' to anything. Made me feel like I was somebody."  Through the stunned silence I managed to mutter, "Well, er, uh, that's resisting temptation. That's sort of what this text is about. And now it's time for our closing prayer."  After I stumbled out of the church parlor and was standing out in the parking lot helping Helen into her Plymouth, she said to me, "You know, I can't wait to get home and get on the phone and invite people to come next Thursday!  Your Bible studies used to be dull. I think I can get a good crowd for this!"...

     Verleen taught me that evangelism is not about getting new members for the church...  Evangelism is not about helping more nice, buttoned-down, middle-class folk like me to find deeper meaning in our lives. Evangelism is a gracious, unmanageable, messy by-product of the intrusions of God into the lives of people.  Verleen was not the only one who intruded into our nice, bourgeois club called Northside United Methodist Church.  She had been brought there, I believe, by Another. Time and again in our life together as a church, just when we get everything all figured out, the pews bolted down, and everyone blissfully adjusted to the status quo, God has intruded, inserting some topsy-turvy-turned life like Verleen, just to remind the baptized that God is large, unimaginable, and full of surprises...  I contend that, through evangelism - through repeated confrontations with the intrusive grace of God - the church can be born again. By letting God use us in God's never-ending pursuit of the unbaptized, the baptized can rediscover what it means for us to be the church. That unlikely gathering of those who are called to sign, signal, and witness to the graciousness of God in a world dying for lack of salvation."

     Willimon dedicated his book to Verleen.  His experience struck me because I have also experienced the blessing of God bringing along very real, transparent, 'don't-yet-know-church-words-or-culture' people like Verleen.  A non-churched addict who had contracted aids through sharing needles, and was initially dating a prostitute. A man I had the privilege of baptizing him before he passed.

     Another was a young lady, who after much prodding by a friend, finally came to our church in Honduras in an expensive car she had borrowed from a friend.  She parked on the steep hill in front of the church, and during the service the emergency brake let loose. One of the greeters interrupted the service to ask if anyone owned a grey Mercedes, because it had just rolled down the hill into a brick wall. At that, the lady jumped up from her seat, and in front of everyone (in a very loud voice) blurted out: "Oh ___!"  And, despite the initially stunned faces, the church elders were so happy she had joined with us, they paid for the repairs.

     Another time, a gentleman who struggled with alcohol (and had previously gotten into a fight with his wife in our front yard!) called us to come down to his house because he'd "found Jesus."  When we arrived at his house, he was watching a VHS (some of you remember what those are) of a Bill Gaither Concert.  And at one point in the concert, he was so moved by joy (I can't remember the song), that he leaped up where he was standing, and jumped so high, that his head hit the glass globe of a hanging light and shattered it all over him and the floor!  And that doesn't even include the young new-to-church ex-nightclub dancer, who offered a prayer request during the service with such descriptive language that some of the older folk almost turned pale from shock!

     You see, sometimes Christians can forget that Jesus' band of disciples were not all moral, straight-laced, upstanding, well-educated, middle-class, "grew-up-in-church-every-week" type people.  Some came from the other side of the tracks.  Some shocked those who were the self-appointed guardians of the religious status-quo.  It's supposed to be that way. In fact, if the Verleen's of the world are not attracted to our churches, or feeling welcomed there, we are doing something wrong. For as we see in the gospels, sinners (the really bad ones like Zealots, prostitutes and tax collectors) were attracted to Jesus, felt loved by Jesus, did not feel judged by Jesus, and wanted to be around Jesus. It's something that should be true of us as well if we are Christians (or as the word means, "little Christ's"). Dare we pray for more gracious intrusions from people like Verleen?

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

A Godward Life

Greetings All,

     This week's "thought" comes to you from John Piper and is found in his book, "A Godward Life."  This selection speaks of the extraordinary gifts of a man named Charles Haddon Spurgeon -- a man who has been called by many, "The Prince of Preachers," or "the best preacher that ever lived."

     After reading of his life accomplishments, it's nearly impossible for any pastor not to envy -- even though the 10th Commandment forbids that!  Yet, even though what Piper shares about Spurgeon's amazing life relate to his work in the pastorate, the things we can learn from our reaction to his accomplishments can apply to anyone we admire who is extraordinarily gifted. Thus I offer it to you for your consideration. Enjoy.

"Mountains Are Not Meant to Be Envied"

 Awed Thoughts on Charles Spurgeon

     "... If you try to make a Minnesota hill imitate a mountain, you will make a fool of your hill.  Hills have their place too. So do the Nebraska plains. If the whole world were mountains, where would we grow wheat for bread? Every time you eat bread say, "Thank God for Nebraska!"

     I'm talking about Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I am warning my wavering self he is not to be imitated.  Spurgeon preached as a Baptist pastor in London from 1854 until 1891 -- thirty-eight years of ministry in one place. He died January 31, 1892, at the age of fifty-seven. His collected sermons fill sixty-three volumes equivalent to the twenty-seven volume edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and stand as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.  He read six books a week and could remember what was in them and where [on one occasion quoting both the page and paragraph where a quote was found]. He read Pilgrim's Progress more than 100 times.

     He added 14,460 people to his church membership and did almost all the membership interviews himself. He could look out on a congregation of 5,000 and name the members. He founded a pastor's college and trained almost 900 men during his pastorate. Spurgeon once said he had counted as many as eight sets of thoughts that passed through his mind at the same time while he was preaching. He often prayed for his people during the very sermon he was preaching to them.  He would preach for 40 minutes at 140 words per minute from a small sheet of notes that he had worked up the night before. The result? More than twenty-five thousand copies of his sermons were sold each week in twenty-seven languages, and someone was converted each week through the written sermons.

     Spurgeon was married and had two sons (twins) who both became pastors. His wife Susannah (who died the same year as Charles, though three years older) was an invalid most of her life and rarely heard him preach. He founded an orphanage (funded mainly through the sales of his sermons), started a home for poor widows, edited a magazine, and produced more than 140 other books (three of which sold over 1,000,000 copies and one of which is still a best-seller). He responded to 500 letters a week and often preached ten times a week in various churches as well as his own. He suffered from gout, rheumatism and Bright's disease, and in the last twenty years of his ministry, he was so sick that he missed a third of the Sunday's at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. He was a politically liberal and conservative Calvinistic Baptist who smoked cigars, spoke his mind, believed in hell, and wept over the perishing, ten's of thousands of whom were saved through his soul-winning passion....

     What shall we make of such a man?  Neither a god nor a goal. He should not be worshiped or envied. He is too small for one and too big for the other. If we worship such men we are idolaters. If we envy them we are fools. Mountains are not meant to be envied. They are meant to be marveled at for the sake of their Maker. They are the mountains of God. More than that, without envy, we are meant to climb into their minds and hearts and revel in what they saw so clearly and what they felt so deeply. We are to benefit from them without craving to be them. When we learn this, we can relax and enjoy them. Until we learn it, they may make us miserable, because they highlight our weaknesses. Well, we are weak, and to be reminded of it is good. But we also need to be reminded that, compared with our inferiority to God, the distance between us and Spurgeon is nothing. We are all utterly dependent on our Father's grace.

     Spurgeon had his sins. That may comfort us in our weak moments. But let us rather be comforted that his greatness was a free gift of God -- to us as well as to him. Let us be, by the grace of God, all that we can be for the glory of God (I Corinthians 15:10). In our smallness, let us not become smaller by envy, but rather, larger by humble admiration and gratitude for the gifts of others. Do not envy the mountain, glory in its Creator.  You'll find the air up there cool, fresh and invigorating and the view stunning beyond description. So don't envy. Enjoy!" 

     There are few preaching pastors who did not study Spurgeon, and of those that did, probably most have coveted some of the many gifts he had or the things he was able to do.

     He had preached 600 times before he was 20 and had such a booming voice he once preached to a crowd of 23,654 people with no microphone or amplification.  He had a photographic memory, pastored the largest independent congregation in the world in his day, and was not tempted by money, giving most of it away to charity or missions. He worked 18 hours a day, had an uncanny ability to paint pictures with words, came up with phenomenal illustrations from everyday life on a regular basis (many of which I have used), and would frequently ask his members NOT to come to church the next Sunday so that the lines of visitors who waited outside each week might be able to get in to have a seat.

     Yes, it's easy to envy or want to be like Spurgeon (I have often)!  But that would be to question God's sovereignty. That would be to forget that God makes each person just as he desires, not that we may wish we were someone other than who we are, but that we might praise His wisdom and be content to simply be who he's made us to be -- weaknesses and all. The giants of the faith are there to inspire us, and we can thank God for their example. But they can actually be a distraction and cause us harm if we end up idolizing them and lamenting us.  God gives us mountains to admire, not imitate, for as Piper points out, the rolling hills and the flat plains have their particular purposes too! 

In the Bonds of Christian Charity, Pastor Jeff

What Jonathan Edwards Can Teach Us About Politics

Greetings All,

     In light of the coming election here in the States (which has many people from both sides a bit discouraged with the final candidate alternatives) I thought some biblically-based political insights from a man who lived long ago -- Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) -- would be useful in helping us choose wisely, regardless of which side of the divide you stand on.  Even those who have determined in protest -- not to vote at all, or vote for a write in -- could benefit from his thoughts on the issue. Although I must add that it's good to remember that Edwards wrote at a time when no constitution had yet been drafted, and the United States had not yet become the United States!

This "thought" is taken from an article written by Gerald R. McDermott, entitled: "What Jonathan Edwards Can Teach Us About Politics."  In his article he shares six of Edwards's views, though I have chosen to limit this week's post to the first three and give you the last three next week.  And before all my friends overseas press the "delete" button, I must add that the insights he shares are timeless and by no means restricted to U.S. politics!  Wherever you may live, I trust you will find them helpful.  Enjoy.

"Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is widely regarded as the greatest theologian this continent has ever produced. As a key figure in the religious life of colonial America, Edwards was a multifaceted thinker whose total catalog of ideas is still being discovered. ... And while scholars have long recognized that Edwards possessed one of the most creative and powerful intellects on American soil [just to give you a sense of intellectual prowess, it helps to know Edwards entered Yale University at 13 years old, having already learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew], most have thought [because of his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"] he was happy to let the world go to hell -- in both senses of that phrase. 

     But recent research indicates that Jonathan Edwards carefully observed the social and political currents swirling about him and developed an elaborate theory of what it means to be a Christian citizen in a civil community... The following is a six-point summary of Edwards's public theology:

     1.) Christians have a responsibility to society beyond the walls of the church. The election of a president who openly supports social policies repugnant to most evangelicals has prompted some Christians to suggest the church abandon efforts to change society.... Yet Edwards (well-known for his leadership in spiritual revivals) insisted that Christians should care about the material and social well-being of those outside the church. God has made us dependent upon our non-Christian neighbors for help, he taught, and therefore to fail to acknowledge our interdependence "is more suitable for wolves and other beasts of prey, than for human beings."  Edwards's convictions on this point stemmed from his belief that we are made in the image of God, who is always reaching out in relationship to others and cares for their bodies as well as their souls. Christians should do the same... Edwards practiced what he preached. Throughout a seven year stint on the Massachusetts frontier, for example, the New England theologian fought for the rights of native Americans who came to his mission church. He argued that Indian girls should be able to go to school, and wrote repeated letters to the Massachusetts Assembly urging the colony to honor its treaty obligations to the Housatonuk Indians...  

     2.) Christians should not hesitate to join forces with non-Christians in the public square to work toward common moral goals...Edwards argued that Christians have much in common with non-Christians: The same basic sense of good and evil, since God has engraved his moral law on every human conscience; similar appreciation for beauty, both material and moral; the same fundamental religious knowledge (that there is a God, and that He is good); and basic human feelings (pity for the poor and love for family).  Using Edward's principles, an evangelical could work together with a Muslim to fight pornography in their community. Both see pornography as a moral wrong, threatening the integrity of marriage and family.... Similarly, his public theology does not call for Christians to create new, separate political communities, or to shun communities outside the church. Rather, it encourages Christians to work together with like-minded citizens, Christian or not, to transform existing communities according to God-given principles of conscience. [Edwards, says McDermott, would have rejected "the historic Anabaptist approach, who choose not to join with those outside the church as equal partners in common work for the community, but remain separate from the rest of society in an alternative community intended to stand only as a distant witness to the rest of culture.]

     3.) Christians should support their governments but be ready to criticize them publicly when the occasion demands. Edwards believed that government is, "a great and important business," that, among other things, prevents, "citizens from tearing one another apart." He preached that a Christian should be "greatly concerned for the good of the public community to which he belongs," and willing to, "lay out himself... for the good of his country." .... But Edwards also warned that political leaders are prone to abuse their power, and encouraged citizens to criticize "the management of public affairs, and the duty of the legislature, and those that are at the head of the administration." More than once he used his pulpit to tell rulers how they ought to behave. One Sunday (with local politicians present)...he boldly advised the congregation that bad politicians seek only to, "enrich themselves, or to be great, and advance themselves on the spoils of others." The good magistrate, however, is not willing to "grind the faces of the poor, and screw their neighbors for filthy lucre." Little wonder that these politicians conspired with others to fire Edwards some months later."

--------------------------------------------------------

     I must confess I'm one of those people who are "discouraged" with the options left to us this November.  And I'm not alone if the lack of placards in people's front yards, and the noticeable absence of bumper stickers on cars are an indication of the lack of enthusiasm for either candidate. Yet despite that prevalent air of discouragement many feel, Edward's thoughts are helpful -- especially the thought that we live in a community, with Christian and non-Christian neighbors, whose physical and spiritual welfare IS to be my concern.  And it is helpful to remind ourselves that "God has made us dependent upon our non-Christian neighbors," and we should "acknowledge our interdependence," and that we do have "much in common with non-Christians,"  and should seek to "work together with like-minded citizens, Christian or not."

     After all, our God (who is sovereign over all), has left us here to be "salt" and "light."  Light which dispels the darkness, and salt which is NOT to remain separate, but be mixed into the whole to give it a better flavor.

Just some food for thought, Pastor Jeff

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' is a bit different than most any one I have sent out before. The reason?  Because unlike the others I've sent which I have found edifying, challenging, or comforting -- and agree with -- this is one I send along because I find it rather sad. That is, I find the quote by Andy Stanley (in red) rather sad, not Carl Trueman's response to it (in blue). And the reason I find it so sad is because many pastors share Stanley's view.
     Thus I offer this post to you as both a heads up, and the critique of an attitude which I feel pastors and churches should not embrace (Stanley's), regardless of the number of people it may bring into their building.

Andy Stanley                                          Carl Trueman

 



    

     For the sake of space I have shortened Mr. Truman's response. If you desire to access the article in its entirety you may go to: www.reformation21.org, under, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," by Carl Trueman, Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary.

     His point is well-taken: Truth has never been popular (I Cor. 20-31), yet it is of utmost importance, and must be preached, even if the entire culture considers it irrelevant and boycotts the church until we change it to suit what they want to hear.  Enjoy.

     "For this month's column, I thought I would offer a few reflections on Andy Stanley's recent book, 'Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend.'  Here's a classic passage [from his book] which represents in miniature an entire universe of erroneous thinking.

     'People are far more interested in what works than what's true. I hate to burst your bubble, but virtually nobody in your church is on a truth quest. Including your spouse. They are on happiness quests. As long as you are dishing out truth with no 'here's the difference it will make' tacked on the end, you will be perceived as irrelevant by most of the people in your church, student ministry, or home Bible study. You may be spot-on theologically, like the teachers of the law in Jesus' day, but you will not be perceived as one who teaches with authority. Worse, nobody is going to want to listen to you.

     Now, that may be discouraging. Especially the fact that you are one of the few who is actually on a quest for truth. And, yes, it is unfortunate that people aren't more like you in that regard. But that's the way it is. It's pointless to resist. If you try, you will end up with a little congregation of truth seekers who consider themselves superior to all the other Christians in the community. But at the end of the day, you won't make an iota of difference in this world. And your kids... more than likely your kids, are going to confuse your church with the church and once they are out of your house, they probably won't visit the church house. Then one day they will show up in a church like mine and want to get baptized again because they won't be sure the first one took. And I'll be happy to pastor your kids. But I would rather you face the reality of the world we live in and adjust your sails. Culture is like the wind. You can't stop it. You shouldn't spit in it. But, if like a good sailor you will adjust your sails, you can harness the winds of culture to take your audience where they need to go. If people are more interested in being happy, then play to that. Jesus did." (Andy Stanley, Kindle 1216-1234)'

     To be sure, as grateful as I am to the Rev. Stanley for the offer to pastor my children, and for providing me with fascinating insights into the philosophical convictions my long-suffering wife, I cannot help but see this as a remarkably naïve piece of muddled thinking.

     With so much promising material, where should one start the critique? Perhaps with the unintended irony of a man warning his readers about feeling superior while at the same time assuring them that he has better insight into the way their spouses and congregations think than they do?

     Or with the odd way in which he berates his audience for making the mistake of assuming that other people are just like them rather than realizing that they are actually all just like Andy Stanley?...  One might also look at the travesty of scriptural teaching it contains. The problem of the teachers of the law, for example, was not that they were spot on; it was that they were completely wrong. That is why Jesus spent such a lot of time berating them for their errors of interpretation. And as to Jesus playing to people's expectations of happiness, one wonders why he made such 'play' of the havoc which following him would wreak on families, of the need to take up one's cross, and of the expectation of persecution to come...

     I will concede that Stanley is certainly right in his basic contention: people are not on a search for truth. The Apostle Paul articulated that well in Romans 1.  Stanley is also correct that truth is irrelevant to people, or at least they think it is irrelevant to them. Compared to Paul, Stanley 's statement on this issue is rather bland. Paul goes much further, declaring the truth, the message of the cross, to be intellectual foolishness to some and a moral offense to others (I Cor. 1). 

     It is not, however, Stanley 's blandness which is the real problem; it is the practical conclusion which he draws from this. For Paul, the offensiveness and irrelevance of the message of the cross demonstrate the fact that those who think in such ways are perishing. The problem is with them, and with their 'cultures,' not with the cross. For Stanley, by way of contrast, it is the 'culture' which is to set the agenda and to which the church must thus conform or die.

     Stanley 's pragmatism, in a manner analogous to the soft relativism of certain evangelical post-moderns  looks attractively plausible; yet this is only because it operates within the framework of... modern middle America... But if Stanley had the imagination to set this pragmatism in Nazi Germany or in a country where female circumcision is de rigueur, some place where middle class American tastes and preferences do not apply, then the cost of such intellectual and moral laziness would immediately become apparent. If you cannot stop culture and should not spit in it, what happens when the culture tells you that happiness comes about by gassing Jews or lacerating young girls' genitalia?  That is somebody's culture. No point trying to resist it for that would risk irrelevance, empty pews and feed an isolationist Pharisaism. And we couldn't have that, now, could we?

     Of course, one can already hear the pat responses of, 'It could never happen here!' or 'But that stuff is obviously wrong!'  Touching in its innocence and predictable in its complacency, such mewling would yet betray a shockingly shallow understanding of both human nature and history. No one in 1900 would have predicted that the most technologically and culturally advanced nation in Europe would elect a man like Hitler and be the centre of previously unimaginable genocide. Interesting what national military defeat, adverse economic conditions, and concerted anti-Semitic propaganda can do to a nation, is it not?... In the field of human ethical behavior, one should never say 'it' can never happen here, wherever you may be.

     And that is ultimately the saddest aspect of the Andy Stanleys of this world. It is not their patronizing attitude to others. It is not their arrogant assumption that they represent the culture or that they have the right to tell the rest of us how we should think. It is not the sloppy way they bandy words like 'culture' and even 'happiness' around without ever offering a definition of what they think they mean. It is not their crass prioritization of raw numbers. It is not their complete lack of imagination regarding the moral possibilities of 'culture.' Rather, it is the fact that what they confidently present as radical insights are really nothing but lazy, insipid, prosaic, and predictable capitulations to the values of the spirit of the age. In short, they are simply dressing up their society's tastes as absolute truth. Unimaginative, respectable, lazy and lethal. The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, is it not?"

     To add to Mr. Trueman's critique it must be pointed out that Jesus did not "play" to the predominant relativism of Greco-Roman culture. To a culture that thought there could be no definitive or universal truth (a belief summed up so succinctly in Pilate's words to Jesus at his trial, "What is truth?" ) Jesus continually said, "I tell you the truth...," "I tell you the truth...," I tell you the truth..."

     Despite their dislike for truth, and the fact that they also considered it irrelevant, Jesus continued to declare it throughout His ministry.  In fact, I believe His response to the issue of happiness would still be, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

     What we need and what we think we need are often two different things -- which is why Jesus never did "play" to the relativism of the surrounding culture, but confirmed right to the very end: "I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

Don't Give it up

Greetings All,   

 

     Today's 'thought' addresses an increasingly prevalent problem in modern church circles--lack of church attendance.  It is taken from Phillip Yancey's book, "Church: Why Bother?" and it begins with the question,"Is church really necessary for a believing Christian?"  

 

     In days gone by church attendance used to be considered somewhat "mandatory."  Not always in a "legalistic" sense (as some people are quick to reply), but in a truly devoted, committed, testimony to the world, I need this, I benefit from this, God commands it sense.  The Lord's Day used to be seen as the Lord's Day and not just the Lord's hour, or worse, his 45 minutes or half hour -- something one fits in among a multitude of other equally pressing (or in reality, not so pressing) commitments and desires. 

 

     And because it was the Lord's Day, they understood that at least part of it was to be spent in the House of the Lord; the House of Worship, or the "Meeting House" as it was called in early New England to differentiate from the "church" (which is the people of God and not the building they meet in). 

 

     Hebrews 10:25 made it clear: "Do not forsake the gathering together of yourselves, as is the habit of some..."   The reason?  It was a time to gather together in a world often hostile to the faith and encourage one another.  The word encourage is a compound word from "en" (meaning "in") and cour (meaning "heart") and essentially means to "infuse with courage" or "infuse the heart with strength to go on."  Gathering with others for worship, fellowship, instruction, prayer and praise encourages both us and them to keep our gaze focused on Christ, grow in Him and persevere in the faith.

 

     This thought addresses why many people (including the author at one point) do not do so. It also offers some food for thought and reasons to reconsider going back if you have forsaken gathering together with others for worship on Sunday morning. I have also inserted a related section from Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?"  I trust you will find them helpful. Enjoy. 

 

     "Is church really necessary for a believing Christian? Winston Churchill once said that he related to the church rather like a flying buttress: he supported it from the outside.  

 

      I tried that stategy for a while, after I had come to believe...and had committed myself to God.  I am not alone.  Far fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ.  Some of them have stories similar to mine: they feel burned or even betrayed by a former church experience.  Other simply 'get nothing out of church.'  Following Jesus is one thing; following other Christians into a sanctuary on Sunday moring is quite another.  Why bother?  As the poet Anne Sexton put it:

 

                            'They pounded nails into his hands,

                             After that, well, after that everyone

wore hats...' (men might add ties)

 

      As I reflect on my pilgrimage I can see that many barriers kept me away from church.  First was hypocrisy.  The atheistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was once asked what made him so negative toward Christians. He replied, 'I would believe in their salvation if they looked a little more like people who have been saved.'

 

     Scarred by the absolutist fundamentalism of my childhood, I too approached church warily.  On Sunday mornings Christians dressed up in fine clothes and smiled at each other, but I knew from personal experience that such a facade could cloak a meaner spirit.  I had a knee-jerk reaction against anything that smacked of hypocrisy until one day the question occurred to me, 'What would church look like if every member were just like me?' Properly humbled, I began concentrating on my own spirituality, not everyone else's. 

 

      God is the ultimate judge of hypocrisy in the church, I decided; I would leave such judgment in God's capable hands.  When I did so I began to relax and grow softer and more forgiving of others.  After all, who has a perfect spouse, or perfect parents or children?  We do not give up on the institution of family because of its imperfections -- why give up on the church?...

 

    What changed my attitude toward church?  A skeptic might say that I lowered my expectations somewhere along the way, or perhaps I 'got used to' church just as, after numerous false starts, I got used to opera.  Yet I sense something else at work: church has filled in me a need that could not be met in any other way.  Saint John of the Cross wrote: 'The virtuous soul that is alone... is like the burning coal that is alone.  It will grow colder rather than hotter.'  I believe he is right. Christianity is not a purely intellectual faith.  It can only be lived in community.  Perhaps for this reason I never entirely gave up on church. At a deep level I sense that church contains something I desperately need.  Whenever I abandon church for a time, I find that I am the one who suffers.  My faith fades, and the crusty shell of lovelessness grows over me again. I grow colder instead of hotter.  And so my journeys away from church have always circled back inside."

 

    It was Billy Graham, I believe, who used to tell people that if they found the perfect church they shouldn't join it, for then it would no longer be perfect.  Yet believing that requires that we maintain an honest inwardly focused gaze directed at our own imperfections and shortcomings, rather than the typical outward gaze that looks for the imperfections and shortcomings of others and then upon finding them (which one can always easily do) uses them for an excuse to leave or neglect attending church.  

 

   One thing might help the defection rate, though.  And that is if the church focused on being the church Christ called it to be.  We can never erradicate things people will use as an excuse to avoid church, since as Yancey admits, the problem really rested in us and not others. But it would help erradicate some of them if we followed his advice given in this second quote: 

 

 

   

    "'In the world Christians are a colony of the true home,' said Bonhoeffer. Perhaps Christians should work harder toward establishing colonies of the kingdom that point to our true home...  If the world despises a notorious sinner, the church will love her.  If the world cuts off aid to the poor and the suffering, the church will offer food and healing.  If the world oppresses, the church will raise up the oppressed.  If the world shames the outcast, the church will proclaim God's reconciling love.  If the world seeks profit and self-fulfillment, the church seeks sacrifice and service.  If the world demands retribution, the church dispenses grace.  If the world splinters into factions, the church joins together in unity.  If the world destroys enemies, the church loves them. That, at least, is the vision of the church in the New Testament: a colony of heaven in a hostile world."

 

               With prayers that we might display such subversive behavior,  

 

Pastor Jeff