Retirement from paid employment has many advantages, chief of which is the ability to choose how one spends time. For me it means returning to the areas of study in my university days….politics, international relations, history and Biblical Studies.
I have recently been
focussing on the parlous state of the Church in Scotland i.e. the body of
born-again believers across the denominations.
Despite growth in some third
world countries, there is no question that the Body of Christ in Scotland is
shrinking both in terms of numbers and influence. What is most troubling is the
lack of concern, debate, discussion, leadership, radical action to reverse this
trend. After all, if the Christian message of salvation and redemption truly is
the most important message in history, why is it that the believers who remain,
rarely discuss, never mind take real concrete action, to reverse the decline in
their own locality?
Don’t get me wrong, across
Scotland there’s plenty of hand wringing, and in some localities, prayer and
even fasting by the faithful. Some of
the leaders of our more ‘hip’ churches have in recent years, taken a leaf out
the corporate world and developed some excellent forward-looking ‘mission
statements’. (A ‘Mission Statement’ is a one-sentence statement describing the
reason an organization or program exists and used to help guide decisions about
priorities, actions, and responsibilities.)
Here are some real but
anonymous examples:
·
‘Loving people to life’
·
‘Knowing Jesus & Making Jesus Known’
·
‘Helping every person believe in Jesus,
belong to family, become a disciple
and build His kingdom’.
·
‘To love the lost, equip the found, and serve
our community.’
There is no question that
these slogans look good on the church website, but are they really any more
than mere words.
In an article last year
entitled: ‘Your Church’s Mission Statement: Do It First, Write It Later’, Karl
Vaters, writing on the website www.newsmallchurch.com
nails the whole issue: “Remember about
20 years ago when it seemed like every business in the world wrote a mission
statement, framed and mounted it in the break room, then stopped hiring
employees and started ‘empowering associates’? If you find someone who worked for a company
that did that, ask them if all the hoopla actually changed anything where they
worked. The likely answer? Nothing
changed at all.
Then ask them how the
changes made them feel. Again, the
likely answer? There were no warm
fuzzies or feelings of empowerment. There may have been momentarily raised
hopes, but they probably turned very quickly into feelings of disappointment
and frustration, followed by whispered mockery and jokes about the ‘new day’
that never materialised.
Mission statements aren’t
bad. The church I pastor has one. (It’s Exploring, Living & Sharing the
Truth of God’s Word, if anyone cares to know. And no, most of our congregation
couldn’t quote it, either.) But even a great mission statement won’t fix a
broken church.”
Pastor Vaters goes on to
explain that fancy words, unless underpinned by deeds are utterly worthless and
will change nothing.
So, if Scotland’s believers
are serious about reversing the decline of the church in both size and
influence, they have to take action and in every creative
way communicate the Gospel to the lost. It is virtually impossible to engage
with individuals in 21st century Scottish culture from behind the
church walls!!
The Apostle James is clear
that actions rather than words are what counts: “Do not merely listen to the
word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the
word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a
mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he
looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,
and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will
be blessed in what they do.”
As Pastor Vaters says: ‘True
disciples are always doers more than talkers.’
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