August 26, 2013
Health Screening
One of our church members mentioned that last week he and his wife
visited a church in a neighboring small community. He was impressed with the
size of gathering, the powerful sermon and the number of families in
attendance. “There were a lot of young
families. It was really neat; they’ve got something going for them.” It
struck a chord with me that I’ve heard before – the inference that the health
of a church can be measured by the young families in attendance. It’s as though
we are confident the church will continue to live on as long as we can actually
see another generation waiting in the wings. It’s great when there are multiple
generations in a body of believers; however, neither silver hair nor youth are
a good measure of the spiritual health of a church.
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----A few young people have gone through the wringer enough times to learn the treasures of self-control, humility, empathy, and doing good to all men. The majority of them are yet battling the forces of life to shape their surroundings into whatever understandings they’ve grown up with. Many have not even pondered the possibility that their surroundings are the effects of the intertwining interests of everyone in their proximity. Therefore, while lip-syncing respect and honor, they yank and twist and slice up any strand of social fabric found disagreeable with their own interests, not giving the slightest thought to the fact that another soul is the other end of that strand. Few young people make church healthy.
-----The Bible doesn’t refer to the care-taking of either God’s Israel or Christ’s church by elder’s just because those words in Greek and Hebrew were so much fun to pronounce. Elders are people who have gone through the wring enough times to have their selves wrung into a proper place of longing for the community defined by God sufficiently to search for it in their quests to get His knowledge and wisdom. They are people who have come to know that work, wealth, and relationships are tools; feelings, perceptions, and situations of everyone around them are materials; and godliness being built of those minds reflecting the Word is the construction objective. These people are workers moving with the Holy Spirit to influence and inspire a fit of all the living stones into what becomes a pleasing temple for the Lord.
-----Age has little to do with who is and who is not healthy for the church. Even how many times one has been around the block has less to do with it. How much is being found in one’s quest for God’s knowledge and wisdom and understanding that’s being used to build others up in what they are being for God has much more to do with it. Length of life merely brings more opportunities for one finally to be ran over hard enough to avert his adventures onto such a course.
-----The church, when it is healthy, makes young people healthy. So more accurately, a church isn't healthy because it has many young people, it has many young people because it is healthy.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Hum…Steve. I’ve got to think on your last line, “…it [the church] has many young people because it is healthy.” I’m not convinced that is the case. Of course I could be a little biased since the majority of our church is in the Social Security category and we have very few children and youth. At least I think God can still find a pulse and we are not yet on life support:)
Gail
Gail;
-----I like to look at everything as processes because nothing is completely good or completely bad, completely right or completely wrong. You pick up a rock you can barely chuck across the road and call it big until you encounter a rock you can barely pick up at all. That rock is big until you encounter Ayer’s Rock. Then that one is big until you think about Apophis, due to fly by Earth Feb 13 (a Friday), 2029. Nothing is big, nothing is little. Everything is in its place serving the purpose the Lord needs of it there. Not every gathering of believers is for serving the needs of the young.
-----The darkness numbed minds of science have become infatuated with the idea of emergence. I like the way Wikipedia describes it as how “…complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.” It fits how the Lord patterns and directs His body on Earth to accomplish the effects He needs.
-----Contrary to contemporary thought, the church is not here to serve everyone outside it only. The church’s primary function is to be the place of spiritual strength and support for those who have given themselves to the Lord. Jesus said He will not loose one of His sheep, and He meant it! I will debate this point until the end, because it emerges from multitudes of simple points made by the Word of God. Then, amongst spiritually strengthened believers are those who serve the varieties of needs outside the church, those who serve needs inside it, those who serve the needs of the young, those who serve the needs of the old, for God gives amongst His people the gifts needed to serve what is in their own proximity.
-----So why would one expect a church full of older folks having come together to strengthen and support one another to be like a church full of young people who are not there? The more young people do come to the church, the more God will gift for serving their needs, because the more the people who are there will want to do so out of the strength and support they‘ve enjoyed. The church has not presently emerged as a church of young people; it has emerged as church of long lived folks.
-----So it isn’t that a rock is big or little or a church good or bad. It’s that a healthy church strengthens those that it is of. It’s that if it is of older folks it won’t try to make believe it must be of younger folks. Your church isn’t unhealthy because younger folks don’t go there. That statement is the same as saying young folks are the measure of a church’s health. The actual measure of a church’s health is its strength and support emerging for who its gathering is. So also, a church has many old people because it is healthy. I’m sorry I failed to make this clear.
“…that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:10)
Steve
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