I have some concerns for my church. It is unlike me to express my quarrels because of my love for the church, its people, and its leaders. Nevertheless, I have encountered these concerns and felt the need to encourage them.
First, I feel my church appears too preoccupied with money. In an age of rampant materialism I see the same spirit reflected in our peculiar preoccupation with things, albeit in the name of the Spirit! Do we express our objectives more in terms of quantitative attainment than we do in terms of people? Do not goals, programs, promotional stimulants, the compulsion to physical or numerical growth quite often become superficial ends in themselves?
Sometimes, in the pursuit of all these attaiments, we have forgotten the actual worth of God and of the person. Is it not easy for the church to obscure the widow's mite in deification of the impact made by the largest contributors? Have we by default projected a greater desire for the giving of money and organizational talent than for the giving of our souls.
Second, the church is too much a victim of what I would call "long-distance" service. Much of the money that has become the church's preoccupation has been sought for the sake of distant causes. How easy it is to suffer from the illusion that while we champion legitimate church projects miles away, God's work locally will remain vibrant with only mediocre support. Often enough we find it easier to finance the evangelization of strangers than to witness of Christ's love to our neighbor. While we have committed ourselves to financially supporting worthy global projects, have we come to consider ourselves largely exempt from the projects at our own occupational or neighborhood frontier?
Third, within the church's denominational life we are distracted by organizational conformity. Within our church family there is little consistent expression of honest, friendly criticism. Our church papers rarely raise questions or discuss necessary negative concerns. Many pulpits are also silent in this respect, because of the fear of being viewed as disloyal if they are too forthright.
Fourth, there is too much similarity between the programs and activities of local churches and the nearest social, civic, or community organization. I would be the last to say that these elements of human fellowship and fraternity are unimportant. They are important, but not central. The real nature of the church is not social, but spiritual. The real business of the church is to proclaim Christ and Him crucified. It is not to teach young people to play better shuffleboard, but to expose them---and their parents---to the fact that life is lived under God.
I sometimes wonder if the church in our time is not becoming more and more isolated from the real currents and needs of people, and more and more the promotor of an impotent institutionalism. Does the church sometimes resemble a ship that has been permitted to accumulate barnacles and rust, and to list in an ungainly manner in a safe harbor? Could it not, with care and courageous command, again sail grandly toward an exciting destination?
So how does one view the church?
Let me submit three persuasive ways of looking at it: First, the church is historically valid. It has worn out many hammers. Admit whatever peculiar negative factors you can amass, and the facts of history will never support the illusion that the church is dying.
Second, the church exists out of necessity people need the church! George Bernard Shaw was known to have said that he liked churches best when they were empty. But then at a later period in his life he said: "If people suddenly found themselves without churches and rituals, many of them would find that they had been deprived of a necessity of life; that their want would have to be supplied; and there would presently be more churches than ever, and fuller ones." Acknowledge whatever faults you may observe, and catalog them. But can you ignore this testimony from human experience? We need the church.
In the third place, God willed the church! Which is what we might call the conclusive argument, since further than God's authority you cannot go. "Upon this rock I will build my church," said Jesus. He came into the world to save it. Jesus was God's revelation, and upon His departure from the earth He left the church as the new humanity bearing His image. Weakened in one place, it is strong in another. Persecuted and hounded into obscurity, it emerges cleansed, reduced to a remnant, but with a new authority because of suffering.
What is our greatest impediment? Is it not simply this: that we have lost our sense of the divine nature of the church?
