Good morning church and happy Saturday.
I hope that you have had a great week and that God has been glorified in and through your life.
I remember seeing a news report about a city park being built in the KC area. Of course, the people in the area were excited about it. It will give them a place nearby to take their families, especially those with young children. They will be able to spend time together, build relationships, possibly meet friends. It will be a wonderful place to go and relax, to unwind, and for a while, forget about the cares of the world. Sounds heavenly doesn’t it?
It just so happens that the site where the park is going to be built is the location where a church has stood for many years. It was a beautiful brick structure that sat upon a nice piece of property on a busy road. A few years ago, it was on the market for nearly 3 million dollars. Then it was cut to below 2 million. Ultimately, the city purchased it to use the land for a park. The pictures that I saw showed the buildings being razed and hauled off in dump trucks, presumably to a dumpsite. As exciting as a new park might be, the whole thing reminds me of the spiritual nature of our country. At one time, church was the center of life and activity in the community. In many places, the church was where everything took place. The buildings were often the most prominent in the town. People planned their lives around what was going on in their church family. For the most part, that is something that has become nostalgic. I am quite confident that if you surveyed people there are many that would rather have a park in their neighborhood than a church. They would justify it by saying that family is more important than religion or that churches do more harm than good. In recent years, the rise of the group known as the “nones” has been staggering. These are the people that claim to have no religious affiliation whatsoever. In many circles, we are at the point where a lot of people do not see the relevance of so-called organized religion. In the country built upon the foundation of Christian principles, Christianity is not often view as the most important aspect of life in the community or even individually. Even among those that identify as Christians, the amount of time dedicated to participating in church activities has declined for many years. A generation ago, it was fairly common for people to go Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and to spend time with church family as well. Now, it is hard to find churches that even offer those services. Granted, going to a church service is not the marker of authentic Christianity. However, I would dare say that most people did not replace church attendance with other things like living missionally, feeding the poor, taking care of widows and orphans. No, it is kind of like the church in our story: it has now been replaced with something totally secular like recreation.
I am really proud of the people of our church. Many have an understanding of how being a Christian is to impact every part of your life. Obviously, t is not about simply attending church. It is about being the church, living out our faith each day. Of course, that does mean you spend time together as the body of Christ. The Bible makes that really clear. It also means that we are consider how God wants us to spend our time for the advancement of His Gospel. It is incredible how we have activities going on throughout the week that are not simply time fillers, but are used to teach people about Jesus. Church, let me encourage you to keep it up. What we are doing is not the norm any more. God is using His church to impact the community with the Gospel. For that, we should all rejoice.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47, NIV).
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