Leaving the Church

December 17, 2007 at 10:37 am · Filed under church, grace, Shepherding and tagged: church, forgiveness, grace, preachers

Friends,

Life can be discouraging at times. Who hasn’t discovered that to be true? I take a minute to peruse the headlines at a few of my favorite websites and discover that there isn’t much happiness being spread around the world. Some bloggers are very fond of ripping and destroying everything that is against theirparticular version of Christianity. Others go out of their way to do nothing but tear to shreds in mockery and sarcasm those who are not “Evangelical Reformed 5 Point Calvinists.” (I have noticed that Calvinists tend to be very arrogant at times. Not all of them, but many of them, especially in the blogosphere.) Sadly, it is these ER5PC blogs that I visit the most because I do appreciate their high view of Scripture even if I deplore their very low view of God’s Sovereignty. This is just one thing that is stuck in my craw this morning.

I’m not innocent. I’ve done it too. I was convicted yesterday morning while I spoke about God’s grace in my sermon. All of the sudden the Spirit convicted me saying, “Look how you have treated the atheists and Darwinists who have visited your blog.” I realized instantly that I was no better than those Christian bloggers who spend all their blogging time defending their superior version of faith against the likes of those who hold an inferior position. As if any of us are saved because of our opinions about Scripture! Isn’t that just the point of grace? I see very little grace coming from some people and I realize that I don’t want to be one of them. I need to respond to people with grace because it is the right way to behave, it is the only way to show that I am saved by grace, and it is the response that Jesus commanded me to offer.

Grace. Sometimes, in moments of selfishness, I wonder what the world would be like if grace did not exist. Doesn’t grace rather complicate things?

The congregation I serve recently passed the 2008 budget. Included in the budget was a line: $1200, Minister’s Education. Now, to be sure, $1200 will pay for about 1 class per year where I am going to school. It will not cover gas expenses, books, room, or food. And besides that $1200, I did not get even a cost of living raise despite the fact that the offerings have increased this year by 5-6%. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not complaining. I don’t preach in order to make money. That’s not the point. The point is, a husband and a wife decided that was too much: they have left the church over this issue. Well, it’s not even an issue. They are evidently the two who voted against the budget, and they have decided not to return.

What they have essentially said is this: We don’t believe the church should be that generous with the preacher. What is my response supposed to be to this? Grace. Isn’t there some room in this for a little ‘righteous indignation’, a little ‘holy anger’, a little ‘you people are so unbelievably ignorant’, or even a little ‘tossing of the temple tables’? Sadly, and yet in a liberating sort of way, no, there isn’t.  Instead, the best response I can have right now is silence, the letting go.

Life can be discouraging at times. These are the difficulties we are faced with as preachers in churches. It is, to be sure, a paltry thing. I’m sharing this, not because I want sympathy, but because I want to put a face on the nature of grace–at least the grace that I am learning about right now. This is, after all, a prayer journey. My prayer today is that I will learn not to be so petty and that someday, when I’m an old preacher put out to pastor and a young preacher’s family comes along in the church I worship with, I pray now that God will help me to be gracious to him and his family. I’m praying now that God will change me in such a way now so that then I will not be like some of the people I see in the church today who have no concept whatsoever of grace.

Father,

Help me to be a man of grace. Lord, help me to be a man who understands the nature of his salvation. Help me Lord to be a man who forgives and forgets others as easily as you forgave me. I need to be gracious Lord so that I will not, in any way, fail to demonstrate to others what you have done for me. I confess Lord my own arrogance and sin and my own unforgiving attitude. I confess my ineptitude and shallowness. I ask Lord for your mercy to be evident in me so that in turn it might be evident to all. Soli Deo Gloria!

jerry

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