What's Right With The Church?
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
Series VI, Cycle A
Object:
A denominational executive was scheduled to conduct an officers' retreat for a local church. The officers had several requests for topics to be covered during the sessions, one of which was some time spent talking about what is right with the church.
Strange questions for church officers -- or perhaps not so strange. Perhaps these folks have fallen prey to the same beast that sometimes attacks us all ... the beast of familiarity, and as everyone knows "familiarity breeds contempt."
What about these officers? No doubt they have heard from unchurched friends that the church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. They have heard the theological controversies that seem to continually plague us. They have probably been to church committee and board meetings and have seen their brothers and sisters in Christ behave in most un-Christlike ways and wondered whether the church has really made any difference in people's lives. They know what is wrong with the church, but somewhere, down in the middle of the mess, they realize that that is not the whole story.
What is right with the church? Despite all we hear there must be something. After all, almost two billion people around the world are associated with it. Think about it for a moment. The church has done and continues to do a great deal that is right!
The church has given the world ideals: religious and political liberty, racial unity, social justice, and human brotherhood. Through the work of the church and the convictions, which have come from her, the most sinful of the world's economic and social and political evils have been driven to defeat or shamed into hiding. Who led the battle against human slavery in this nation in the nineteenth century? Who has been in the forefront of America's quest for racial equality? Who has been most vocal in its concern for peace among nations? The church and her people have been the conscience of the world.
The church has provided bold messengers, the first pioneers and adventurers into the dark and neglected areas of the earth -- the William Careys, the David Brainards, the Hudson Taylors, the David Livingstons -- not simply for the sake of pushing beyond frontiers but that the people who live there might come to know the fullness of God's blessing in Jesus Christ.
The messengers of the church, not medical people as such, have been the first to go into all parts of the earth with the science of sanitation, nutrition, and physical healing. How many hospitals are named "Baptist" or "Methodist" or "Presbyterian"?
Not professional educators but the messengers of the church have reduced languages to writing, established schools, and set up printing presses for the distribution of the Word of God. The first Sunday schools were established, not simply to teach Bible stories to youngsters, but to offer what was then the only opportunity for them to learn to read and write. Public education in America grew out of the selfless work of the church.
Not social reformers but the messengers of the church have taken the lead in the fight against poverty, famine, and plague. The church has elevated the status of women, created new conditions for childhood, established orphanages, day care centers, homes for the aged, and others who need help.
History offers no parallel to the unselfish and uplifting work of the church. There is no question that what goes on in legislative chambers, in council halls, and in the highest courts of the nations is always of importance to humanity. But when the world is out of joint, when people's minds are disoriented and their hearts are about to fail them for fear, thank God we have the church. With all of her sanctuaries of worship and her opportunities for service, where men and women come to have their faith strengthened, their conscience convicted, their convictions born, and their characters created. The church, for all her faults, is the institution that has made the most positive impact on the world through the ages.
But for all the good works the church has offered through history, those pale by comparison to the one thing that the church uniquely did and continues to do -- it has introduced the world to Jesus Christ. With the writer to the Ephesians the church has proclaimed, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace."
Strange questions for church officers -- or perhaps not so strange. Perhaps these folks have fallen prey to the same beast that sometimes attacks us all ... the beast of familiarity, and as everyone knows "familiarity breeds contempt."
What about these officers? No doubt they have heard from unchurched friends that the church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. They have heard the theological controversies that seem to continually plague us. They have probably been to church committee and board meetings and have seen their brothers and sisters in Christ behave in most un-Christlike ways and wondered whether the church has really made any difference in people's lives. They know what is wrong with the church, but somewhere, down in the middle of the mess, they realize that that is not the whole story.
What is right with the church? Despite all we hear there must be something. After all, almost two billion people around the world are associated with it. Think about it for a moment. The church has done and continues to do a great deal that is right!
The church has given the world ideals: religious and political liberty, racial unity, social justice, and human brotherhood. Through the work of the church and the convictions, which have come from her, the most sinful of the world's economic and social and political evils have been driven to defeat or shamed into hiding. Who led the battle against human slavery in this nation in the nineteenth century? Who has been in the forefront of America's quest for racial equality? Who has been most vocal in its concern for peace among nations? The church and her people have been the conscience of the world.
The church has provided bold messengers, the first pioneers and adventurers into the dark and neglected areas of the earth -- the William Careys, the David Brainards, the Hudson Taylors, the David Livingstons -- not simply for the sake of pushing beyond frontiers but that the people who live there might come to know the fullness of God's blessing in Jesus Christ.
The messengers of the church, not medical people as such, have been the first to go into all parts of the earth with the science of sanitation, nutrition, and physical healing. How many hospitals are named "Baptist" or "Methodist" or "Presbyterian"?
Not professional educators but the messengers of the church have reduced languages to writing, established schools, and set up printing presses for the distribution of the Word of God. The first Sunday schools were established, not simply to teach Bible stories to youngsters, but to offer what was then the only opportunity for them to learn to read and write. Public education in America grew out of the selfless work of the church.
Not social reformers but the messengers of the church have taken the lead in the fight against poverty, famine, and plague. The church has elevated the status of women, created new conditions for childhood, established orphanages, day care centers, homes for the aged, and others who need help.
History offers no parallel to the unselfish and uplifting work of the church. There is no question that what goes on in legislative chambers, in council halls, and in the highest courts of the nations is always of importance to humanity. But when the world is out of joint, when people's minds are disoriented and their hearts are about to fail them for fear, thank God we have the church. With all of her sanctuaries of worship and her opportunities for service, where men and women come to have their faith strengthened, their conscience convicted, their convictions born, and their characters created. The church, for all her faults, is the institution that has made the most positive impact on the world through the ages.
But for all the good works the church has offered through history, those pale by comparison to the one thing that the church uniquely did and continues to do -- it has introduced the world to Jesus Christ. With the writer to the Ephesians the church has proclaimed, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace."
