I still get my denominational newspaper each week - the United Methodist Reporter. In the latest edition, there is a story about an Episcopal Church in New Jersey that has a major dilemma. They have no money and they are contemplating selling their "Tiffany Stained Glass Windows" in order to survive a little longer. The once vital congregation has dwindled to almost nothing and one solution that has been suggested by the pastor is to sell the windows. Each window is insured for a half million dollars, but brokers indicate that the most anyone could expect to get for a "religious themed" window is $200K. Of course there are many opinions related to what the congregation should do - Episcopalians are like Methodist in that regard - wherever two or three Methodists are gathered together there are at least 5 or 6 opinions! Anyway, in one discussion, the article quotes one concerned congregant (see how I use that denominational language with ease!!) said, "This is what makes the church, the historic stuff!"
In another realm, a letter to the editor in the Kansas City Star recently was lamenting the fact that people had made such a big deal out of the life of Jerry Falwell. The letter writer was aghast that anyone like Reverend Falwell could be considered a Christian. He even went so far as to say that Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, was a better Christian than Jerry Falwell because he was more accepting of gays and lesbians - or something of that nature.
And now for one more story: I was a campus minister at one point in my life and our campus ministry had an intramural basketball team. In one of our games, the officiating was obviously one sided against us. By the time the game was down to the last 3 minutes of play, our team had been to the foul line only 3 times (that means that only 3 fouls were called against the opposing team in the entire game), and the other team had shot more foul shots than we could count! Needless to say, our guys were quite frustrated and began to show that frustration toward the referees. Finally, the debacle was over and as our players walked off the court, refusing to shake the hands of the opponents (I'm not saying that behavior showed good sportsmanship, but it was understandable), one of the chief offenders from the other team (the one who fouled our guys most and got away with every one of them) yelled, "I thought you were supposed to be Christians!"
The implication in all of those stories is that we, the Church, have lost our way. From the church lady who thinks that it's the historic stuff that makes the church, to the gay guy who thinks that being a Christian means you have no standards, to the basketball player who thinks a Christian is one who never gets frustrated in the face of injustice - we learn that the church is obviously communicating a wrong message. We have wandered far off course from our mandate to "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." It's time we Christians examined ourselves and see where we have lifted up our denomination, or our rules, or our attitudes and failed to lift up Jesus.
