There are a lot of ways your church can lose you.  When you begin to lose interest in your church, you start to stay away, shop around, or stay home.  There are small ways this begins.  It helps to know how to recognize the beginnings of those interest-losing times.

Some of the cause for dissention in a church in deciding on materials to be taught–in Sunday School, Bible study, take home teaching aids.  Who gets to decide this, how does it get voted on?

In a church, the leader is important.  Whether you call him a pastor, minister, preacher, or other title, it’s important to know that you as a church body have someone steering the ship.  What happens when you lose your captain?

• Church membership dwindles. 

You stay away, thinking there is no real reason to attend services.  After all, if there is a different preacher each week, no regular person in front, how can you get a message?  The truth is, a church feeds each other.  Everyone of you is needed, so if you stay away, someone else is needing you.

• Church members shop around.

You believe that changing churches will help.  Since your leader left, why should you stay?  You start going to other churches one by one, to see if they have that something that you’re missing.  They won’t.  What you’re missing is the enthusiasm you had before.  Part of what you’re feeling is left behind.  To be honest, you’re angry or hurt that your pastor left.  You didn’t even know he was thinking about it.  What went wrong?  He told all of you he’d be there forever, so what changed?

• Church members get depressed. 

You go to church but your heart is not in it.  You don’t know where else to be, so you’re there on Sunday morning.  You have no zip, no enthusiasm.  You and the other members–you’re just people–what can you do for your church?

Stop.  Take a deep breath.  Wait a minute.  What is a church, really?

Defined in Funk and Wagnall’s Standard College Dictionary, a church is “a building for Christian worship; a local congregation of Christians; a distinct body of Christians having a common faith and discipline”.  It doesn’t say anywhere that a church is a group of people sitting in front of a leader in order to worship or to practice that faith and discipline.  Nowhere does the dictionary refer to the church as being the leader, as depending on the leadership.  It’s easy to forget.  Every so often let’s go to the dictionary for a reminder of what a church is.  Then we’ll look in the Bible for what a church does.

A recent sermon by a guest pastor focused on 1 Corinthians 1, 12:4-12.  These passages do not mention the pastor as being the church.  Verse 4: “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.  And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”  (New King James)  These verses talk about you and me and our gifts, and God. 

The gifted church functions under one God.  Sounds like the church in this instance is a living, moving entity.  The gifted church is made up of many members who have been given gifts.  By using those gifts, members contribute to the church and help it to function under one God. 

Verse 7 adds: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”  If your gift is not put into practice, your church suffers.  The church here, is defined again as a body of Christians.  Not a building, not a leader, but a body of Christians–the members.  There is no mention of the minister as defining the church, as being the one who has to do it all.  The gifted church functions through diverse gifts.  Each of these scriptures reminds us of a logical, almost mathematical equation–the total of the gifts of the gifted church is only limited by the sum of the gifts utilized and offered to the church by each member in its congregation.

A church doesn’t run based on who is behind the pulpit, but who is on the throne in Heaven.  That’s a fact.  We know it, we breathe it, we read it, but we forget it.  Preachers come and go, but there are many members to carry on the work of the church.  When we don’t get involved (use our gifts) the way God intends us to, it hurts us.  It hurts our church. 

Okay–we’ve identified the problem, we’ve zeroed in on the solution.  How do we keep the church going while we’re waiting for the new leader to be discovered?

• To borrow the Nike slogan, “Just Do it!”

Many of us talk, discuss, theorize, postulate, summarize, network, and so on and so forth until no one just DOES anything.  Get involved in your church.  You have an idea of how you can be of help to your church.  You love to teach, to decorate, to share encouragement, to send cards, to clean, to organize a Bible study or prayer group, to work in the nursery, to write poetry for the newsletter, and to do many other little jobs you’ve had in your heart as a way to share your love for God with your church.  Tell the church secretary or put it in the newsletter, to let others know what you’re doing because they may want to join you, to be part of the fun.  Post it on the church bulletin board, have it announced from the pulpit.  In other words, don’t wait for someone else to get the ball rolling, throw it yourself.  This is as easy as using your gifts, gets. 

Think of a church like making a pot of stone soup.  If you don’t know the legend of the stone soup, I’ll tell you.  There was an old lady who lived outside a small village and she had no food, nothing in her pantry, her garden had long since given all it had.  She had nothing but an idea.  She invited everyone in the village to dinner.  She was making stone soup, she told them, the main course, she said.  She asked each person to bring his own bowl and just one food item–something to show his neighbors what a good year God had given them.  She reminded them they were to be her guest.  The people came, each bringing the best from their garden, their pantry, and their storehouse.  She asked her neighbors to add what they brought to her soup pot, which was still nothing more than a stone boiling at the bottom of the water in the pot.  They continued to bring riches from their farm’s bounty.  One by one they added carrots, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes and meat to the pot.  Then they gathered in groups and talked about their bountiful year.  They visited and renewed friendships while the soup simmered.  It was late in the afternoon when the talk turned to the meal–although everyone felt full of friendship and fun from conversation.  She dished up the soup.  She had bragged that the soup would be delicious, and she was right.  They all told her how wonderful it tasted.  “We must get this recipe, the ladies said.” 

Making a church is like making stone soup.  When each person doesn’t contribute, the soup is tasteless–no ingredients, no flavor–just stone.  When we each offer at least one ingredient, it is zesty–interesting–even fun, with everyone sharing in the fruits for the common good of all.

• Remember the soup.

Remember the stone soup legend whether you have a pastor or not.  Don’t forget to bring your best ingredient even if your leader has been at that pulpit for ten years.  It’s not the pastor who makes the church.  You could almost say it’s the church that makes the pastor.  It doesn’t really matter who is behind your pulpit.  It does matter Who is on the Throne.  He really cares that you’re in front of the pulpit, and He loves what you’re bringing to add to His stone soup.