I haven’t posted anything in quite a while. Maybe winter is getting to me more. More likely I’ve just been lazy!
I have been doing a good bit of reading. Karen and I read different things, but it’s
amazing how all roads lead us back to Christ.
She read a book about the purpose and validity of small
churches. The author points out how God
repeatedly uses small things and surprising people to carry out His will. Scripture is full of examples. If the purpose of a church is to allow us to
worship God and build up one another as we live out the convictions of our
faith, to love one another and bring that love to the world around us, a small
church makes more sense than a very large one.
At the same time I’ve been reading a collection of sermons
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In one,
Bonhoeffer talks about Gideon and the way in which God purposely reduced the
size of Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 300 to do battle with more than 100,000
armed soldiers. The choice of Gideon was
odd to begin with. He was not a warrior. In fact he described himself as the least
person in the weakest clan in Israel.
The Lord led him to victory and to peace. The reason that the Lord didn’t want Gideon
to use the original 32,000 men that he had raised into an army was that God was
afraid that if the large army won the battle they would congratulate themselves
and turn away from God. In order to win
the victory with 300 men, they would have to fall upon God’s grace to see them
through. They would know that only the
hand of God could bring them to victory.
Then in another sermon, Bonhoeffer is talking about the
passage in Matthew 16 where Jesus asks His disciples who they say He is. Simon Peter answers: “You are the Messiah,
the Son of the Living God.” Jesus
responded with a bit of misunderstood wordplay that has separated Roman
Catholics from Protestants for 500 years. He tells Peter (whose name sounds like the
Greek word for “rock”) that the rock of that confessional statement made by
Peter will become the foundation of His church: “… on this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Bonhoeffer goes on to say that it is the solidity of that
confession, made by each of us, that is still the strong foundation of Christ’s
church. “Yet it is not we who are to
build, but God. No human being builds
the church, but Christ alone. Anyone who
proposes to build the church is certainly already on the way to destroying
it…. We are to confess [our faith], while
God builds.” Our job is to maintain that
strong foundation through the confession of our words and our life that Christ
alone is our Lord. Christ will take care
of the building. At moments when we
think that we have done a great job building a church, Christ may decide that
we need to be reminded that it is He who builds the church, not us.
What we so often bemoan as the decline in church membership
and attendance may simply be God bringing us back to a size that recognizes His
strength and His will rather than our cleverness and determination. Bonhoeffer leaves us with this comment: “Church, if you do your own part right
[maintaining the foundation], then that is enough. But make sure you do it right. Don’t look for anyone’s opinion; don’t ask
them what they think. Don’t keep calculating;
don’t look around for support from others. Not only must church remain church,
but you, my church, confess, confess, confess: Christ alone is your Lord; by
His grace you live, just as you are.
Christ is building.”
Numbers do not define the vitality or the strength of a
church. A small church, firmly rooted in
that confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, will be used by God for God’s
purposes. Nothing else matters.
Blessings to you all.
Pastor Jim
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