June 12, 2015
Looking Back
I visited a church where the
pastor explained their low attendance by telling me of the congregation’s former
glory. Some years back people left his congregation and established two other
churches. I had the distinct feeling that being the original church from which
the two others were derived, even though they weren’t planted by the founding
church, was an important credential. I’m reminded of the Exodus and the Hebrew
children arriving at the Dessert of Sin were they had freedom from slavery, but
all they could do was remember the past and the greatness of Egypt. “In the
desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The
Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!
There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have
brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death”” (Ex
16:2-3 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Churches exhibit the cliquishness of man more than they do the reality of Christ. Their objective is to bring His saints into a community where His love will flow through them to one another in all ways of fulfilling need, caring for one another, pleasing one another, and being joyful in a new life more remarkable than this world has ever seen. The help and benefits amongst these saints were not meant for boundaries, not even boundaries against non-believers, “…let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal 6:10) But we’ve put up those boundaries as we call ourselves the This Church, and The That Church, and The Other Church of Over There. Oh, we all admit to one another’s Christianity, but when was the last time all the churches of Montrose came together in one big pot-luck of a celebration. Or all the churches of anywhere else, for that matter. And if ever they would you know the This Church would seat around those tables, The That Church would seat around those over here, and The Other Church of Over There would seat around the other tables over there.
-----Part of the problem is just that old human nature of shyness. Associating with people you know is always easier than getting to know people you haven’t met. And especially in something as spiritually significant as worshipping the One who has provided the amazement of an eternally blissful life just for the confessing of sinfulness and then the asking, doing that worship amongst those who think similarly and know one another is more emotionally engaged.
-----But the more sinister evil is too present in nearly all churches. We must keep the barriers between my group and your group as high and thick as possible lest your group spoil mine with its heresies. This actually comes from another very natural human trait no person can completely escape: bias. Every one of us is most familiar, by far, with one mind, and one mind only: his own. And since that one mind is the only one available for making his every decision and choice, it must be right. It has to be right. Otherwise there would be either reason for change or acceptance of failure. And that does not play well with two other traits all we humans share: resistance to change and the horror of possibly failing. Therefore, self assessment always measures the correctness of ones own mind with a scale much more generous than it uses to measure the minds of others.
-----Paul’s acknowledgment of our dim, incomplete knowledge was meant to alleviate this problem of needing to fortify and defend the “right” we are lest we must either change or realize our own failures. We are all a mixture of right and wrong, perception and misperception, success and failure, good and evil.
-----In the light of Paul’s thoughts upon our dimness, there is no need of high and thick church walls. I don’t see any reason why the little church come down to only ten souls can not just go to the church next door, or to the other one down the street. Nor is there any reason they should not continue worshipping ten souls strong. It would take some time, but I think the church at Montrose would become much stronger if everyone started mixing around with the other churches like you are doing.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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