Green Grass

Something odd happened to me this past Saturday. I went to a Presbytery meeting at one of the larger churches in our Presbytery, and I found myself having an odd reaction.

I'm a guy who was raised in a small town who loves small churches...it's what I'm used to, feel called to, and love. But Saturday I walked into a larger church (around 1100, mind you...not a megachurch) and saw the beautiful sanctuary with new carpet and spectacular eye-popping banners and paraments. It was set up for the bell choir to perform on Sunday, right next to the guitars and trap set for the contemporary portions of worship. All this was set in front of a massive, beautiful pipe organ. I moved into the Fellowship Hall next, with bulletin boards covering the outside walls...Middle School group, High School Group, College Group, Young Adult Group, Seniors Group, Stephen Ministries, Mexico Mission Trip, Local Missions, Women's Bible Studies, Men's Bible Studies...and a table set up for a renewal/retreat weekend. The sign-up sheet was full. We moved down to the education wing with pictures of the hundreds of children that work their way through the Sunday School rooms on an average Sunday. I soaked it all in, in all of it's impressiveness...and something strange happened: I was jealous.

And I sat there, thinking about everything that's eating at me right now. I thought about our age (both facilities and congregation), our need for youth, our general tiredness, and all the ways that we are limited. I thought about how half-empty the glass was. I thought about the calls for volunteer es that have been met by silence. And I thought about how a large church would solve all of those problems.

I sat looking at one of the bulletin boards when a member of our Presbytery who was the Interim Pastor here, came up behind me and read my mind: "One set of challenges for another, friend...read your Peterson." I knew exactly what she was talking about. And so, this morning, I re-read some of "Under the Unpredictable Plant:"

"A bare 60 or 70 years after Pentecost, we have an account of seven churches that shows about the same quality and holiness and depth of virtue found in any ordinary parish in America today. In 2,000 years we haven't gotten any better. You would think we have, but we haven't. Every time we open up a church door and take a careful, scrutinizing look inside we find them again...sinners. Also Christ. Christ in the preaching, Christ in the sacraments, but embarrassingly mixed into this congregation of sinners."

"It is to be expected in these situations that with some frequency certain pastors will come forward with designs to improve matters. They want to purify the church. They propose to make the church something that will advertise to the world the attractiveness of the kingdom. With a few exceptions these people are, or soon become, heretics, taking on only as much of the gospel as they can manage to apply to the people around them, attempting to construct a version of church that is so well behaved and efficiently organized that there will be no need for God."--pgs. 24 and 25

I remember reading this in seminary and saying "Amen." I remember scoffing at the shallow pastors who skirt challenges as they seek greener pastures. I remember nodding as one of my mentors used to say, "the key is looking for how God is working rather than all the ways we think He's lagging."

I still get it. I still admire it, yes...I still understand and believe it, yes. But I'm discovering that it's a whole heckuva lot easier said than done.