June 24, 2009
Please Pass the Plate
Last Sunday was our first service in the ‘new to us facility’ and we had 162 members, visitors and well-wishers in attendance. Naturally, there are a few glitches to work out. In the old facility we were fairly well compacted and had only one isle going down the middle of the church. Those serving communion would send the emblems down a row and the person seated at the end of the line would pass the trays over the shoulder of the person seated in front of them and the trays would work their way back to the server. In our new facility however, we need a new system. We now have two isles, along with double rows of seating on an upper level balcony. Since some of us are still in the ‘let me help you pass the tray’ mode, Sunday’s servers had to do some quick juggling and fast foot work. Communion trays seemed to have a mind of their own zigzagging over shoulders and around the auditorium. Placing the trays back on Communion Table a chuckle went through the audience as one of the elders broke the contemplative silence saying, “Now I’ve just got to ask...Did everyone get served?”
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Gail;
-----Please bear with me for a few moments, because although what I am about to say is going to offend most everyone, especially your blessed congregation, by the end of it I will dissolve the offense. “Did everyone get served?” I think that is a striking question in what the Lord’s church has come to be today, and “Those serving…would send the emblems…” is a revealing statement. From careful thought about the text of I Corinthians 11:20-22, communion in the early church was not a cracker chip and a taste of grape juice. It was a full meal. By Paul’s question, “Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (I Cor 11:22b) he alludes to the nuance that their communion was even to provide an occasional, decent meal to the impoverished. But man’s ways have now reduced it to a mere symbol. Gathering together has less meaning of the aid and assistance shared among us and more in meeting in a building for worship. Another symbol. Generosity has become tithes to buy a building and to pay salaries for preaching and leading. The biggest part of church budgets are for salaries and property. That is now our generosity.
-----Over the ages, this condition has become the almost universally accepted concept of doing church, mostly because gathering together became viewed as forming a team; teams need leaders; and leaders need stuff to lead with. Although most churches maintain at least a ten percent of offerings budget for missions (for obvious reasons,) their portion of the budget for aid to the saints is an absolute pittance. The rest is for the leaders’ tools. But another view of the gathering is that of a community. Communities are less a team and more an interaction. They are less a sharing of common work and more a sharing in a common culture. Those of the culture involve themselves in a variety of works to serve one another. The Christian concept of participation in one another’s lives rather fits this more laissez-faire concept. The Christians met in Chloe’s house, and Stephanos’ house, and other homes and places. They interacted amongst one another, and supported one another, and practiced the gifts they each had without need for church property, structured programs, and church bulletins. The leaders were there to assure the purity of doctrine and teach the Christian culture. Each member had to be alive in the basics of the Christian character, or the church would dwindle and maybe die. They did not have the organized church to be a token of their work.
-----Today, nearly every aspect of the personal Christian life is symbolized by some organized function of the church in which we may participate with a tithe. But, even so, there is spiritual growth, the sick are visited, shut-ins are fed, eyes see, and ears hear. Moreover there are many who take the tray in hand and simply make things work, in spite of “the way they should work.” For what makes the church is all the people who have answered His call, what they do in His name, and how they perceive life in Him, no matter how organized or liassez-faired. What counts in Him is accepting your brother. So although I am more liassez-faire about Christian life, I go to the church building and support the assets there because my brethren are there. The church in all its organized aspects is important to them. So it is important.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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