Our library was one of 40 locations across the nation to host a
traveling exhibit that celebrates the 400th anniversary of the
translation and publication of the King James Bible. This week I attended one
of two sessions with professor and author Leland Ryken, a scholar and national
expert on the KJV. We were seated together closely at tables and behind me was a
stoic, but attractive and smartly dressed woman in her 60’s. At her table sat
one of the local pastors who asked her where she went to church. “Oh, I don’t go to church.” Making a
smooth transition he told her their church doors were always open and she was
welcome to visit them. I turned around in my seat and joked with the pastor
about overhearing his snippet of evangelism. I suppose the woman could have
been library patron, or simply someone who considers the KJV Bible to be great
literature. However, I cannot wrap my head around anyone attending a lecture,
and apparently having some sort of relationship with the KJV, and yet not going
to church.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I think you would be surprised at what exists in other people’s heads. And I don’t say that necessarily meaning these surprising things are wrong. I’ve discovered a lot of surprising ideas that came out wrapped in obvious truth, and I’ve discovered some whose truth became evident only after a bit of pondering. It seems natural for us to immediately receive a proclamation like this lady’s as an indication of no relationship with the Lord. But like the little pine tree clinging to a crack in the rock wall of a cliff, life will maintain, if not thrive in strange places.
-----I know people who don’t go to church. Some do church in their homes, or so they claim anyway. Even though that is “going to church”, it really isn’t “going to church” as we consider it. One of these people told me their church service consisted mostly of watching Sunday morning church programs on TV. Interesting. In the past, before I was married, even I considered not attending church. I find the very act of “being a church” to be contrary to the most fundamental aspect of the new life’s frame of mind: unity. Sure, most at a church are united, but even whisper in its hallways the prospect of joining worship events or teaching opportunities or community service and evangelistic efforts with that church down the street and you might get your mouth washed out. -----Some people just can not abide hypocrisy. Therefore they stay away from churches for many reasons. Well. I have to abide hypocrisy, because I not only see some of mine, the rest of it I can imagine seems a quite natural fit upon me. No, no, no, no, no, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, and I long to be perfect more than anything (should be a surprising statement until you think about what it means to be perfect.) Yet I am. So I fit rather well at any church.
-----I pondered the prospect of making every reality of the Bible I could truly understand a part of my natural thought process and living it amongst the people I meet on the street. I pondered that being my church. And I liked the idea. So it is my church, although it is taking more years to build up than I thought. And now that the clown has another four years to fundamentally transform America, in my conversations around and about I find myself going very quickly to the topics of man’s falsehood, God’s truthfulness, and Christ’s return. Yesterday in an isle at Wal-Mart, just by the way I answered a stranger’s “How are you?” there came to be a thirty minute service between us about politics, people, culture, and the Lord. I’ve got his name in my pocket, we’re going to do dinner. That is my church.
-----The problem is people have problems as much as they are problems. We need each other. And we need to do things with each other not just for mutual influence, but also because we need to exercise those mental and emotional muscles of forbearance and forgiveness and humility on others as much as we need them exercised upon us. This is our church. I’ve studied by observation social psychology most of my life, and now, for almost a year, I’ve been studying it from select books. God made the psychology of the heart and mind. And even through all the criticism I am able to honestly make about the churches we become, I am truly amazed at how much the facets of human psychology are groomed and improved by the social interactions of their members. The Spirit stirring within our being together moves us rather like leaves in a breeze. This experience can be had nowhere else but in our churches. And of course, all churches together are His church.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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