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.

I looked out of the window by our kitchen table and watched Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees, startling red Cardinals and their neutral colored mates, and the noisy Blue Jays.  I checked our bird identification book to identify which species had stopped to eat, noting their color, size, markings, shape of their beaks; more than I had ever noticed before.

I became the Chairman of the Bird Board.  I read my bird book with my morning coffee, discovering what seeds each type of bird likes to eat, where they nest. I bought feeders, birdseed, suet and found a recipe for nectar for Hummingbirds and Baltimore Orioles. I bought custom described seeds and soon observed that most types of birds will eat most types of seed.

Filling over twenty feeders was taking more of my time. Dan and I enjoyed window bird watching all day every day – morning through evening.  We were visited by 2 or 3 Cardinal families, pushy, noisy Blue Jays, Finch varieties – Goldfinch, House Finch, and Purple Finch.  A surprise visit from 2 Red Breasted Grosbeaks and their mates was a treat, and the black and bright orange Baltimore Orioles appeared – a rare treat. Woodpeckers – the Downy, Hairy, Red Bellied, pecked at the suet. Not in my plan were the Blackbirds, Starlings and Cowbirds who came in flocks, landing on the ground, eating spilled over seed, later flying up to the feeders and gobbling them dry. They were the bullies in the school yard and scared every smaller bird away.

As the Chairman of the Bird Board, I had to take control.  When the bigger birds interrupted the feeding flow at the feeders, I had a block of wood that I banged on the wall from my vantage point inside. In fact, I had 2 wood blocks for 2 areas. That worked!  But only for a minute or so. 

They came back. I banged. They came back.  Dan tried to help me by waving his arms in the air or banging the table.  The bully birds left.  They came back.  Again.  And again.  The banging became a patterned and annoying ritual. 

I remember the late Ethel Waters singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” and marveled at the way God watched over even those tiny birds.  I hummed that song and as I watched the birds out the window while fixing dinner or cleaning up the kitchen.  I looked out at the many birds, gave thanks for their beauty and brightness, and hummed that song.  The chorus of the song, “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free!  For His Eye is on the sparrow, so I know He watches me.”  I loved that part – “…I know He watches me”. 

I was brought back to abrupt reality.  The banging on the table, the wall, my yelling through the screen, the waving of Dan’s arms, all pushed out the peace I had enjoyed while watching my storybook feeder picture of many types of birds gathered in our backyard. 

I had to put a stop to it. I declared a new rule.  We would ignore the rude and pushy blackbirds, the starlings, even those cowbirds who moved in to takeover any nest of any other bird.

I surrendered.  I will look the other way; I will buy seed more often. 

I watched as the blackbirds flew in, crowded into feeders used by small sparrows, pecked at the suet enjoyed by all the woodpeckers.  The smaller birds left as they saw the blackbirds coming in for a

landing.  I was tempted to get out my block of wood again, but I had made a “rule”, and was determined to stick to it.  

Funny thing, when you surrender to what is God’s plan, it works.  My giving in taught me what “His Eye is on the sparrow” really means. Birds live together in their own type of harmony. The blackbirds came in a flurry, but didn’t stay long. After they left, the other birds came back, one by one.  It shouldn’t have been a surprise since I’ve seen it in so many other parts of my life, but leaving it in God’s hands works!  His eye really is on the sparrow, taking care of the small, the unnoticed.  And He is watching over me. That’s His plan.

Copyright Myrna Estey Coleman

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A BIT OF HISTORY:

“His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” became famous during the Billy Graham Evangelistic services as Ethel Waters sang it with the great crusade choirs.  This song had an unusual birth, authored by Civilla D. Martin, a Canadian lady who had been educated in Nova Scotia. She taught school for a short time before meeting and marrying Dr. William Martin, an evangelist and musician of sorts. Together, they enjoyed a ministry. Civilla wrote the lyrics and said this about her inspiration to write the song.

“Early in the spring of 1905, my husband and I were sojourning in Elmira, New York. We developed a deep friendship for a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle – true saints of God. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nigh 20 years. Her husband was an incurable cripple who had to propel himself to and from his business in a wheel chair.”

Civilla continued, “Despite their afflictions, they lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration and comfort to all who knew them. One day, while we were visiting with the Doolittles, my husband commented on their bright hopefulness and asked them for the secret of it. Mrs. Doolittle’s reply was simple: ‘His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.’ The beauty of this simple expression of boundless faith gripped the hearts and fired the imagination of Dr. Martin and me. The song ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow’ was the outcome of that experience.”

Dr. Martin tried writing a musical setting for the poem, but they were not satisfied with it, and sent the lyrics to Charles H. Gabriel, an experienced musician and songwriter, asking him to write some fitting music for her lyrics. He did so and his melody has been the vehicle that carried Civilla Martin’s poem around the world.

“Why should I feel discouraged,

Why should the shadows come,

Why should my heart be lonely,

And long for heaven and home?

When Jesus is my portion,

My constant Friend is He,

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.”

Chorus

“I sing because I’m happy.

I sing because I’m free,

For His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.”

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father… Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” – Matthew 10:29

“They’re only things,” she said.

Sure…try getting rid of all your ‘things’, I wanted to reply.  But there was no way to convey to someone else the agony of memories that were gone; the loss of a favorite trunk filled with hand-rubbed warmth from a great-grandfather; the missing moments of mystery from a mother’s night-time story book.

Things.

The fire had smoldered for hours, apparently.  They couldn’t agree on exact cause, even exact location, but by the time it ripped its way out of the roof, it was full-fledged.  Flames raced toward the clouds with frantic, desperate fervor.  We watched, still dressed in nightclothes, slippers the only protection against the wet blacktop.  Fragments of glass filtered into the flowerbeds, chunks of charcoal riddled the roses.

I’d heard about fire before–read stories in the paper, sympathized with families who had lost Christmas gifts, furniture, and clothing.  I had felt sorry for those without the comfort of four familiar walls around them anymore.  I knew it would be terrible having to clean, replace or restore what was burned.  But I had no idea of what it was really like.

Fire ascends indiscriminately, lashing out at photographic memories of a mother or grandmother while ignoring snapshots of scenic, sandy beaches.  Hot coals chew edges off grade school pictures of youngsters with missing front teeth, and the residue of ash and flaked carbon plasters souvenir scrapbooks tightly shut.  Fire destroys while it bequeaths piecemeal portions of lives.

Fire demands retrieval from the past to the present.  In the sorting through that followed the flames, we made decisions–what gets saved–what’s worthy of reworking–what gets washed–cleaned–polished, and worst of all–what gets discarded.  Values are turned around–a 79-cent bud vase seems priceless because it survived, a priceless cut-glass pitcher is worthless because it didn’t.  An 8 x 10 ft. storage building is stacked with boxes of what used to be arranged on shelves or hanging on the wall of a 7-room house.  Precious treasures are stuffed in marker-pen labeled boxes, put “somewhere” until there is time to look through later, to see what actually made it.   The house I loved and shined was gone.  The floors I washed and waxed were covered with gray chunks of an overhead ceiling.

It seems the fire got it all.

But that’s only the way it seems.  As I brush off miniscule bits of dusty ash from a family jewelry box, color appears.  Rosy red-toned wood is crackled, but responds to soap and water.  Applying creamy wood polish reveals old, remembered richness.  Hinges are fragile but fixable with good eyesight and tiny screws.  Velvet lined drawers are intact, though no longer soft and silky.  This container meant for careful conveyance of jewels is still able to do its job.  The original beauty of the piece is gone, but in a symbolic sense, its purpose is stronger than ever.  The case stands in almost defiant victory.  The fire did not take away its use.

Every one of us is like that.  Things happen that appear to have eaten away at our edges–to have used us up.  We are buried by ashes; we are covered with tragedy; we are shrouded with sorrow.  We give in to the charcoal chunks of ceiling that have fallen on us from above.  Or do we?  Is it more likely that we give ourselves to the dusting off, the washing up, the starting over that is possible after the fire?

Separate the wheat from the chaff.

Fire cleanses, refines the gold.

Any change hurts, but one of such suddenness is especially painful.  People don’t know what to say, make comments that don’t fit.  Unsure of how to heal our hurt, they make sentences out of platitudes.  They justify trauma with colloquialisms, trying their best to make us feel better.  They hug, they touch, and they care.  Somewhere in there, we appreciate.

We may want to shout–to lash out–to say–“Things?  Try getting rid of all your things!”  But we don’t.  We respond to comments meant with caring, with caring.  We mouth words that fill in the void.  We become closer.  Eventually, we are healed.

The fire did not get it all.  People became closer, expressing concern by giving pots and pans, sharing sympathy by offering shoes, a toaster, microwaves, even underwear.  This fire did not take away, it gave–a new sense of brotherhood–family.  It reminded us how good people are–how giving others want to be.  God did not cause the fire, but He retrieved hearts from the ashes, sent friends from the flames.

Like the jewelry box, we are rubbed and polished.  Thank You, Lord.  You sent us friends and caring.  You gave us the knowledge that your family is worth more than a house, so much more than things.

                         

                                                                                                                  copyright – Myrna Estey Coleman