Ecclesiological Euthanasia

There exists a rich variety among churches that is reflected in the shape of their ministries, the makeup of their congregations, and even the choice of their names. Church names are interesting. Have you noticed, for example, how many are “First” and how few are “Second” (or Thirty-seventh)? There is an almost infinite supply of First Baptist churches. Years ago I saw a storefront with a sign that proudly announced First Corinthian Church of something-or-other, which made me wonder if they had actually read that book. I drove by a Catholic church recently that couldn’t make up its mind; it’s called Saints Peter and Paul. It seems a bit awkward, but if two heads are better than one, why not two saints? And if we’re going plural, maybe Mars Hill should be Mars Hills now that it has multiple campuses.

Not everybody appreciates the variety. Many folks (especially we pastors) have well-formed (and occasionally too rigidly defined) ideas of what constitutes a local congregation. Those that don’t measure up should be transformed or closed. Some of the ones that choose the transformation option adopt a new name as well, something like
New Hope. Just about every community has a New Hope church now; it makes me wonder how many of them used to be Old Despair.

I’m starting to have second thoughts about the readiness of some folks to consign a congregation that they think doesn’t measure up to closure or transformation. I wonder how many needs cease to be met in the transition. It is true that some congregations die, although I suspect they die less often than we think. Sometimes people euthanize the church because they can - and because it seems to be an easy solution to a shrinking and aging membership, an inadequate building, or declining finances. But it turns out that bigness, buildings and bucks aren’t necessary to have a living congregation.

There aren’t many Biblical models for ecclesiological euthanasia beyond the threat to the Ephesian church. Their warning had nothing to do with bigness, buildings or bucks; it was a matter of leaving love. I find myself sometimes wondering what the Lord of the church thinks of people pruning off one of the fingers of His body because they mistook it for a wart.

Usually the only thing that dies is the organizational facade that we mistake for life. It doesn’t actually take much to be a congregation - probably less than most of us think - people (more than one) willing to obey and worship the Lord together. They don’t even need a catchy name. They just need to be what God has called them to be. Those are the kinds of congregations that make me glad that I am ecclesiologically pro-life!

Happy

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A Matter of Days

“It could be a matter of days.” Those unwelcome words relayed by her family this morning shape the expectations for my cousin in Australia. With multiple organ failure and in need of a liver transplant for which she is not a candidate, she has exhausted the options that I wish were still there. I know the feeling too well, and I do not like it.

Among my early memories is a visit with my mother to the farm of my cousin’s family in Scotland. I was five years old; she was a couple of years older, which was old enough to convince me that an unauthorized wade in the duck pond would be a good thing. And it was - until my mother saw the soaking wet results. Sixty years later I still smile. To say that that was a lifetime ago ceases to be a cliche. It seems more like a matter of days.

And that, I suppose, is what life is: a matter of days. Moses got it right. “Teach us,” he prayed, “to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” They are numbered not to be hoarded, but to be enjoyed. Moses continued the prayer: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” That seems wise to me. Some days are peaceful and some are painful, but I’m with Moses. It’s a matter of days, and my prayer is that all of them, whether peaceful or painful, will be indelibly marked by God’s unfailing love.
Happy
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Missionary of the Month

He was one of my countrymen. It makes me smile that the patron saint of Ireland was actually British. Today is his day - St Patrick’s Day - and lovers of the Emerald Isle celebrate in all kinds of strange ways that actually have nothing to do with the man.

As a British teen in the fifth century, he was taken captive by Irish raiders and spent the next half dozen years as a slave in Ireland. Though his family was Christian, it was apparently in slavery that his faith took root and deepened. Sensing God leading him back to Britain, he escaped. He reached home convinced that God was calling him back to Ireland, not as a slave but as a missionary. After several years of preparation and eventual ordination, he returned to Ireland and led the Irish from paganism to Christ. One of the keys to his effectiveness was his ability to introduce Christianity while respecting the Irish culture.

So forget the leprechauns, snakes, and Irish whisky. St Patrick was one of the most effective missionaries Britain ever produced - and that’s worth celebrating. Happy
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Japan

My heart aches for Japan. My experience in that country is limited to one accidental day when Joan and I arrived too late to make a planned flight connection, but my heart aches anyway. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see my house and car washed down the road by a tsunami. Of course, houses and cars are mere things; what of the staggering multitude whose lives suddenly ended? The images of the disaster in Japan leave me speechless; I have trouble wrapping my mind around devastation that great.

One can take refuge in the reminder of Psalm 46 that God is still God even when the earth moves. When the earth isn’t moving and when the seas are contained, it is not difficult to profess
“we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam...” But when disaster strikes and the earth does give way, it is another matter entirely.

I can understand Job’s silence in the face of God’s questions:

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
   when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
   and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
   and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
   here is where your proud waves halt’?”

I’d be silent, too.

I take comfort in knowing that God is not defined by the restless crust of a fallen planet. He whose love knows no limit and who transcends the Richter scale will not waste 9.0.
“I will be exalted among the nations,” he said - the same nations that are in an uproar. In the midst of disaster and in its aftermath, in the gracious acts of relief workers and ordinary people, among those left speechless and those who weep, Lord, be glorified.

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Ah, Music!

Shakespeare called it the food of love, and to Carlyle it was the speech of angels. Words don’t do it justice, for however you describe it, there is nothing quite like good music.

I am blessed to be able to enjoy my daughter’s extensive musical gifts, but there is something wrong about a pianist without a piano. And so last week when she suggested taking a detour by the piano store, it was easy to agree. It was not her first trip there. Or second. She had been looking for the right vintage piano for some time, and she was there to look again, not to buy. Or so we thought. But we were wrong, for there it was - the rich-sounding instrument deserving of her gifts.

It was delivered today, and it is where it belongs. (I’m pretty sure that there will be a piano and someone to play it in my corner of heaven!) It graces the living room where the overflow of Suzanne’s gifts can bathe my soul as I experience the joy that Longfellow described:

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.

I am blessed indeed. Laugh

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Launched!


It had a gestation period longer than an elephant, and there were times when I wondered if it would ever be complete. My adventure with the Christian Life course began over three years ago. This week the course was released in English on the Internet Seminary’s web site. When I began the adventure of developing a concept into a course that could become an effective training tool in the lives of leaders, I had a vague image somewhere in a back corner of my mind. It was a picture not so much of a completed course, but of a collection of in process (aren’t we all) and growing Christian leaders whose lives God was shaping as they used the course. The picture is becoming clearer. To God be the glory.

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