A Good Day To Think About The Times
A Good Day To Think About The Times
Sunday, January 3, 2010
D. Robert Chance
Introduction
As you know I am an especially avid reader (even if it wasn’t required for my vocation) and over the holidays among the many things I read there were four articles in the Washington Post that especially caught my attention. The articles taken individually were especially cogent to the church and taken together should be required reading for all who especially care about and do our best to prepare the church for long and faithful ministry. Did you happen to catch the articles?
• The first article was entitled: Churches combine to survive:
The article was a detailed account of a Methodist Church that survived on the basis of merging two congregations with different ethnic origins, customs, languages – into one. The old “English” congregation once been vital and significant in its ministry but over the last twenty five years had dwindled down to a minimal number and could not survive any longer. In spite of trying everything (much of which was trendy and shallow) the church was not attracting new members and was on the verge of closing. A second “Indian” congregation was growing and expanding but had no building or hope of having one. The two merged and while it is a struggle they are trying to be a church of combined languages and cultures, but with lots of compromises.
• The second article was called: Christmas Pageants Adapt To The Times, and was the story of congregations that can no longer have the traditional Christmas pageants of years ago – in part because there are so few children in the church anymore.
• The third article was called “The Church Glimpses Come In Sad & Sweet”, and was the story of all the different things people do on Christmas – other than celebrate the spiritual meaning of the day.
• The fourth article was “Theologian JJ Packer Reflects On His Faith”.
The article was the story of reflections from the Episcopal theologian and head of the church in Canada. The article began “ It’s been a good year for the Rev. J.I. Packer, one of the world’s best-known theologians. In March, the Anglican priest and Regent College professor won Bible of the Year and Book of the Year honors for editing the English Standard Version Study Bible. He also released two of his own books — “Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight” and a year-long devotional using his seminal work, “Knowing God.”
Packer, listed as one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” in 2005, sat down with the Bee of Modesto, Calif., at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas this year to talk on a wide range of subjects, from growing up in England to C.S. Lewis’s impact on his life to becoming embroiled in the Anglican/Episcopal dispute.
Recent surveys show that spirituality is on the rise but that Christianity is decreasing or stagnant.
“I think that the number of lively evangelical Christians in North America is, in fact, increasing. I think that if overall statistics show that churches are losing ground, it’s because the deadwood is dropping off the branches. Amongst younger people, there is a very great deal of evangelical Christianity. It’s not always deep, but it’s there.”
As the old year passes and the new year begins such a focus on the nature and ministry of the church is refreshing and encouraging – yet the themes are troubling and of such significance we should pause and think about them.
I was equally enthralled with the comments in the blog that followed each of the articles and read them with interest.
• Somebody pointed out that the church that bases it’s evangelism and membership program on sending home loaves of bread and plates of cookies to entice people “in” and “back” is destined to have a limited shelf life.
• Someone else pointed out that Bishop Packer’s reflections only demonstrate how deep the struggle for the soul of the church is and how faithfulness to the gospel and reflections of the culture in which the church struggles to define itself.
As the new year begins it can be said the signs are clear:
• Time are tougher and tougher on the church. It will only get harder and harder to do vital and lively ministry in the name of Jesus in these times and in this culture.
• We are living in a secular society and the church is little understood and less appreciated.
• As numbers decrease and values continue to become more and more secular the church will be / is engaged in not just a struggle to survive but to do so with integrity and faithfulness to the Gospel.
• The church can’t afford and won’t be able to carry those who fail to help do the work of Christ and to who have become “dead weight” in the battle with evil.
• In spite of the decline of the church the hunger and thirst of people is still very much with us. Spirituality still exists – its just that the church is less and less the place where people go to find their answers.
In terms of “the church”, as the new year begins we should all be paying attention:
1. Times will be increasingly tough for our church and for all churches. We will need members – more appropriately “disciples” who are committed and consecrated and devoted to Jesus and to the church more deeply than anything else in their lives.
2. The times will demand that the church pare it’s rolls, have meaning in it’s definition of membership, and be faithful to the Gospel. I don’t like thinking of people as “deadwood” as the good Bishop did but I do think however we carefully choose our words we will have to stop colluding with all the people who think of themselves as members yet give nothing or very little, do nothing or very little and largely fail to support the community or the ministry we try to conduct.
3. The church will have to get smaller to get stronger, get right with being faithful to God or get left in the past.
4. The church that sacrifices faithfulness to the Gospel on the altar of popularity is not the church that looks like the N.T. church – or will be rewarded by God.
In a second but related line of thought I want to note that irrespective of what the church does or doesn’t do we each have to think about our own personal spiritual health and whether we are being fully faithful to God and to the church.
God calls to each of us personally.
1. Irrespective of what the church does or doesn’t do, is or isn’t we are each accountable for being faithful and obedient.
2. God expects us to be servants, especially to those less fortunate.
3. God expects us to be givers, not takers.
4. God expects us and holds us accountable to put Him first, to live in faithfulness and to do justice.
The short of it is:
• Times are and will be even more so hard and therefore each of us has to be faithful and “step up to plate” in not just doing our share to insure the long term surviveabilty of the church but more than our share.
• God expects his church to be faithful – not successful – and he expects us as individuals to do and be everything possible in building our church and helping it reach out in the name of Christ to the spiritually hungry and needy.
• God expects us as disciples to put Him first and to tend to our spiritual welfare before all else in life.
• Irrespective of what others are doing or not doing we have to faithful.
Last night I had the strangest dream.
One night early this week I had one of those dreams that when I woke up seemed more real than reality itself. In the dream I was preaching on Sunday morning – today and laying out the clear and unwavering call of the Gospel.
In the dream I was preaching hard and true a message of confrontation in calling people to be faithful and obedient in their daily living and response to the Lord.
I knew when I finally awakened and got alert enough to distinguish dream from reality that the reality was I had to live out the dream – today.
God is calling every one of us to be equipped for battle with the forces of evil,
to be faithful in our own lives,
to be committed and dedicated to one another and to our church
and to stand up and be counted.
Closing…
In the Gospel Christ encounters people all along the roads of Galilee and Judea and all of what we call the Holy Land. He encounters them sick and well, rich and poor, interested and not interested and over and over he gives them a call – and choice. The call is his – the choice is theirs.
• He encounters the woman at the well.
• He encounters the man on the road who is going to bury his father.
• He encounters Zacchaeus in the Sycamore Tree.
• He encounters Matthew at the tax collector’s toll booth.
• He encounters fisherman on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
It’s always the same in the end… “Follow Me”.
Today I have one mission – to issue once again in clear and non-abivilent terms the clarion call of the gospel to each and every one of us to reaffirm our faith, to recommit ourselves to being faithful in our own personal lives and to be active and supportive in the ongoing ministry of the church. Christ calls – are you going to respond.
We encounter the Lord.
He issues the call. “Follow Me”.
The decision is yours.
The choice is yours.