In this insipid age where individualism and institutionalism make destructive bedfellows in governments, media, and churches of our society, God is calling his church to return to him and stand once again in him, alone!
In the LCA, the call for repentance is no less than anywhere
else! The practitioners in this career
driven organisation are losing their way.
The career pastor doing what he wants in an institution that does what
it wants, has turned the word of God and his liturgy of divine service and
worship into a means of controlling souls to the glory of many things other
than the Triune God.
The people of the church are tired! Tired of government control, manipulation by
the media for the sake of business and retail power, now the church which more
and more is modelling the media, marketing, and the pungent political strategies
of a secularised world is feeding the already cynical and sceptical society in
which we live.
Yet the parishioners too practise and participate in the
very things that make them tired! The
very thing our society is work for is the very thing that is taking away the
thing for which we work. And it is no
different in a church full of career pastors and “one-hour-a-week”
parishioners.
The riddle is this:
We want more time! Yet, the more
we work for it the less of it we have!
And the church too is hell bent on the same goal. But the career pastor and the parishioner are
too busy to give time to the only thing that will sustain us physically,
emotionally, mentally, and spiritually (the whole ontological package). Why? Because we too have gone a worldly way
and conformed to the wills of the media and government! Ironically, these are the very things causing
us to be distrustful of people who use given power for their own purposes.
Instead of following the seduction of secular society
busying itself in a bid to not be busy, the church too has a mandate given by
God, to be still, to stand, to remain, and to abide. Our mandate is not to work for the weekend
but to stop in God, to stop in his word, to rest in him. Not just as a righteous work on Sunday
morning to keep up appearances, but to be in him, remain in him, and desire it.
If we want to be less tired, have more time, we need to stop
and give our time back to him. If we
want recreation, we need to be re-created, and if the church wants to be the
agent through which Jesus Christ gives us the re-creation we so desperately
need, we need to listen to God, not the prose of politicians, the bullying of bureaucrats,
and the mantra of the media.
If the church wants people to give more time to the church,
then the church needs to give more time to God.
Those career pastors and bishops, holding out for retirement, need to
give time to God by being with people, not locked away behind a desk, or an infrastructure,
or role that makes them too busy to be whom they’ve been called to be.
If people what our church to serve them, they need to let
God serve them more than just one hour a week!
We need to stop! Say
no to our practises and the practises of others that make us tired and cynical. Rather than “do” we need to “be”. To be still in God and listen to him! To not just use his word as a justification of
conforming to our wrong ways!
When our political system and the media along with our
social structure collapses in the future, a church found seeking its security
in these practises will tumble too. Many
will wonder why we have fallen apart.
But reality is the church that collapses will be a church that based its
faith on everything other than Jesus Christ and looks to other things rather
than the word of God, repentance, and forgiveness.
The church that crumbles will be one that does the things of
God because it has too while it loves to be seen doing what the world
wants. The one true church will be the church
doing the things of God because it loves to, wants to, and turns its back on
the world to do so.
Bishops, pastors, and parishioners, it’s time to draw a line
in the sand and stand in Jesus Christ alone.
Psalm 46:8–11 (ESV)
Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
Grace, Mercy, Peace
Friarpuk
