Month: August 2022

The One Essential Member

Colossians 1:15-20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

The One Essential Member

I. Who is the most important, even essential, member of any church? Is it:

The Council President? This is the lay leader chosen by the congregation to shoulder responsibility for everything that happens. He or she must make sure the church is staffed, bills are paid, and legal matters followed. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it! The person who does it must be the most important person in the church, right? No; important, yes, but they’re not the most important.

The Head of the biggest family? Especially in the Midwest, some of the  small town churches are built around one key family. They provide the members, the workers, the council leaders, and much of the offering. Without them, the church would evaporate. So their matriarchs or patriarchs must be the most important members! But, no, it’s not them.

The Leader of Altar Guild? How can you have worship, the core activity of the church, without people to set up communion, clean and change the paraments, light the candles, etc.? Surely, they are the most important! No.

The Leaders of the Men’s and Women’s groups? – These are popular, respected, and loved, and active in service. Yes, they are very important and a blessing to the congregation, but not essential to the existence of the church.

The Wealthiest member? You need money to run the church these days. Just fixing our parking lot costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. You want to have the money people on board. So if there are no wealthy members, you need to go out and start recruiting them! It’s that important, but not the most important!

The Biggest giver? Maybe the biggest giver is not the wealthiest, but the one who gives like he or she is. That’s the one you want; without them the church would be in financial trouble, unable to meet its obligations and needs. Utilities get turned off, staff go unpaid, benevolences are dropped. Surely this is the most important? No.

The Custodian? Who keeps the buildings clean, safe, and open? Who makes sure equipment operates safely? If the buildings and grounds deteriorate, where would we meet? It must be the custodian, right? No.

The Friendliest, most outgoing? When visitors come to church, if they are greeted and made to feel welcome and valued, they may come back and want to be part of your friendly church. They provide much needed warmth and loving kindness. Why wouldn’t such people be essential? Granted, they are wonderful and important, but they are not the most important.

The Pastor? Now we’re to the category that’s near and dear to my heart! Who ever heard of a church without a pastor? Who will preach and teach, visit the sick, conduct worship and funerals? Who will perform the sacraments, except a pastor? Yep. We must be the most important people in the church! But, sad to say, we’re not.

So then, if none of the preceding people is the most important to the church, who is? And what are the criteria for deciding who is most important? The criteria are: 1. Whose presence is indispensable; and 2. Whose absence would cause the church to crumble or disappear, or die?

The one, most essential member of the church, obviously, is Jesus Christ.

     Without him, there is no Gospel – no good news for the world (and we of       all people are most to be pitied, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19).

      Without him, the Spirit is absent.

     Without him, the sacraments are hollow rituals. No body or blood with             the bread and wine.

     Without him, our organization may be called a church, but it’s really just       another non-profit organization which, though well-intentioned, would       be dependent on human strength and the wisdom of flawed, self-                       centered sinners.

     Without him, we would have the appearance of holiness or religiosity,             but would lack what is needed: 2 Timothy 3:5 warns against those                      “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

How do you seek his presence, and keep Jesus as the central focus of the church?

1. We gather in his name – For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

2. We pray in his name – “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” (Luke 19:46); and at the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” (John 16:23)

3. We treasure and revere the Scriptures as the word of God – “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16)

4. We pray and submit our will to God’s in all church matters – “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10)

5. Lutheran Confessions: The definition of the Church: The gathering of believers where the Gospel is preached in its purity and the sacraments are rightly administered.

6. Forgive as we have been forgiven, and seek unity in the Spirit with each other – Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

The truth about the essential nature of Christ in the church is proclaimed above in the passage from Colossians 1:18, “And he is the head of the body, the church.” It is also celebrated in the hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation.”

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
she is his new creation by water and the Word.
From heav’n he came and sought her to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.*

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Matthew 16:17-19; Colossians 1

*Lyrics written by S.I. Stone, 1866. Public Domain.

Whose Church Is It, Anyway?

In November 2002, I attended an administrators’ luncheon at a Christian school convention. The speaker was Walt Wiley, who spoke on the topic, “Whose School Is This?” His remarks had such a beneficial effect on me that I have preserved a card with his outline for twenty years – and keep it on my home office desk. In plain sight, to keep me from forgetting what he said.

He made three main points about Christian schools, but his remarks are equally applicable to Christian churches. His points were the following, with the word “church” substituting for “school”:

  1. You know you don’t own the church, so stop worrying. Let God be God.
  2. You know you don’t own the church, so stop controlling. Get your hands off!
  3. You know you don’t own the church, so stop bragging. Give God the glory.

Mr. Wiley’s theme verse was 1 Corinthians 4:7, ” For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” The point of the verse, and of his presentation, was that the church is God’s, and that the church, and our roles in it, are given to us by God.

As a pastor, I found that my role seemed to be to worry about everything our church* did, and everything it faced. I worried about our members, about the visitors who were checking us out, about our staff, about the offering, and about what I was going to preach any given week. I worried about the church leadership, our community reputation, and whether we were properly serving and honoring God. I worried about our missionary work.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the work or find it rewarding and fulfilling. I did. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my relationships with members, staff, and the public. I did. But it seemed at times that if I didn’t worry about making sure everything was right, no one would, and the church would fall apart. I felt responsible for everything that happened.

Which is why Mr.Wiley’s words, “you don’t own the church, so stop worrying,” were so impactful and important for me to hear. They reminded me that it wasn’t my church, but God’s. He formed it, he called its people together, he sustained it, and he gave it  its purpose. Although he calls pastors, lay leaders, and the members to serve the church and its work, ultimately, the church belongs to him. It is his responsibility.

The church is not just an organization, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. It is an organism, a living body created by Christ for his glory and for the saving of many souls. The Bible makes it clear that the Church is the body of Christ here on earth. We are his hands and feet, ministering as he would, going where he would go. The same Spirit who was in him, now resides in us, leading, empowering, and protecting the Church.

This is not to say we don’t make mistakes or fail sometimes in our mission, but another biblical metaphor comes into play: the Church is the bride of Christ, which he loves, in spite of its shortcomings, and forgives freely.

The knowledge that our church belongs to God, and is both the body and bride of Christ, is important for me to keep in mind, because though I am no longer the pastor, I still worry about what is happening to our church and about the challenges that lie ahead.

Some of these challenges will probably always be there, due to the nature of society and its people: increasing secularism, government interference, crime, social divisions, inflation, and personal sins of pride, lust, and greed. Then there’s outright opposition and “cancelling” by the media.

But the problems are not only external. While I believe God’s Church will endure persecution as it has for 2000 years, the work and life of any one congregation can be weakened or destroyed by internal factors. These can include heresies – spread by false teachers; conformity to the errors of the culture around us; and divisons that tear us apart. Scriptures warn about all three of these dangers:

  1. Heresies: False teachers are called “wolves” who come in and tear apart the flock (Acts 20:29-30). Peter warns, “there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies” (2 Peter 2:1). And Jesus warned us, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect” (Mark 13:22).
  2. Conformity: Romans 12: 2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” James 4:4 warns, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
  3. Divisions: The early church in Corinth found itself ripped apart by schisms based on which teacher or apostle the various members followed. There arose parties within the congregation, which so threatened the witness and survival of that church, that Paul had to write to tell them to stop it. He pointed out that neither he nor any of the other apostles or teachers had died to save them from their sins. There was only One to be followed and that was Jesus Christ himself. He condemned their actions in 1 Corinthians 3:3, saying, “For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” His definitive command is found in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” And his conclusion is in 1 Corinthians 12:24-26, “that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.“

Of these three church-wreckers, the one that most concerns me right now about our church is #3: divisions. Long-simmering tensions among our staff and between some members have led to declines in attendance and giving. Members have left for other churches. Staff have quit and the joy of the Lord is dampened. Things came to a head in recent months, culminating in the resignation just last week of our senior pastor.

Pastors leave for various reasons: a new call, sickness, retirement, scandal, or death; no pastor is permanently in that office forever. And the pastor who left has served us for ten years – longer than the average of 3.6 to 5 years. The issue is that his departure was due to a schism in the congregation and staff – highlighted by the reactions of various members to his resignation. Some celebrated, others cried. Some threaten to quit. The situation is not healthy. It is too similar to the picture Paul painted of the Corinthian church.

What we need now is healing and forgiveness all around. We have much work and a difficult road ahead, but our hope is not in our cleverness or abilities, but in the fact that the church is not ours. It belongs to God in Christ, who bought the Church – and our church – with his blood. At his departure, Paul reminded the elders of the church in Ephesus, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

My human self worries about what will happen; it’s only natural to do so, since my eyes and ears tell me we are in trouble. But this is God’s church, and my faith calls on me to “trust in the Lord with all my heart, and lean not on my own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5 paraphrased). That faith reminds me that God has promised in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” And so, I will try not to worry, but lean instead on the true Owner of the Church, that One whose purposes are beyond our knowledge, whose foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men (as in 1 Corinthians 1:25), and who is able to do the impossible (Matthew 19:26).

Trusting in God, let us lift up our prayers, privately and together for this church and its God-given ministry and mission. Let us pray for our leaders and for all member who feel hurt and disaffected. And let us pray for the reconciliation of all, that God may be glorified in his Church.

And remember: you don’t own the church, so stop worrying. Let God be God!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen

Read: 1 Corinthians 3

*When I spell church with a small “c” I am referring to our local church. When I use a capital “C” I mean the Christian Church in general: the Holy and Apostolic Christian Church.