In the early church there is what is called the five-fold ministry, which is comprised of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. All these roles were used actively in the church. This hierarchy you see today where the seminary educated pastor does everything and then the rest of the congregation sits passively just "wanting to be fed..." well that's not exactly biblical.
Anyway, I had an experience yesterday that encouraged me a little that not all buildings are completely useless wastes of time and money. My family had two major financial setbacks in the last week, one of which was that I did not get this advocacy job that we very much need right now and that I was very excited about. I consider myself a fairly resilient person, but this blow really hit me hard. I spent a whole day pretty much crying. I was trying to get myself out of this depression by trying to find some way to be generous to someone in a worse situation than mine. I knew about this shelter called Night of Peace that a former church had collected hygiene items for and so I decided I would drop some things off there.
I decided it was time to donate our changing table that was still in good condition. A friend sent some blocks that John did not need and so I gathered some other items to bring to the family shelter. Jeff and I got the changing table down the stairs and out the door and then tried to fit the thing in our Honda hatchback. It would not fit by 2 inches. No matter which way we tried. Then we tried taking the back off. Well this was no sturdy thing and it was starting to crack. We were getting frustrated. I was starting to cry. We finally had to abandon our effort and put the thing back together and take it back inside.
I was feeling miserably dejected and hopeless at this point. Here I was already so sad and depressed and all I wanted was to do something for someone else. Then I couldn't even do that! I called my friend to see if we could use her husband's work van- which we couldn't- but she said I could come over and sit in her hot tub. I was at the end of my rope. This friend's house is always where I end up when I've hit my limit. She feeds me healthy food and offers me her hot tub.
So I was able to prevent a complete meltdown, but then upon returning home I still had the problem of the changing table that I was not going to return to its usual place just to cover with more stuff! In a last ditch effort I pinged Facebook to see if someone with a larger car could take it. Within minutes a friend offered her SUV! Hope returned!
Yesterday we went to the shelter. We drove past a very large Baptist church that I thought could be the location for the shelter, but I was informed that church did not house the shelter, it housed a high school. So then we arrive at this very modest sized Methodist church, This small church transformed its entire basement/fellowship hall into an emergency shelter for 6 families! If you have ever worked with the homeless, then you know that there are hundreds more homeless people than there are beds. It is even harder to find a shelter for families because most shelters either take just men, or just women, or just women and kids. So this church houses the Night of Peace shelter. It has set up partitions for 6 families to be able to sleep. They arrive at 4pm and get a snack. Then they have dinner and there is a full-service social worker who comes to find the families resources such as job training. Unfortunately they have to leave at 8am, but they are looking for funding to remain open all day.
I was told that other churches came in to make a holiday meal. 3 tiny churches all share that one building.
You know I tend to have a fairly negative view (have you noticed? lol!) of institutional church, mainly due to the chilling effect of the buildings on the Gospel, but I have to say that what this meager church was able to do with their resources was impressive! Rather than doing a fundraising drive to build an enormous fellowship hall, for what- Wednesday night dinner before mid-week Bible study?- this church was actually housing the homeless! If THAT is how you use your church I will become a believer.
Of course I do not actually believe that every single church is bad. But we have to look at the overall impact of the institution and if that is reflecting the words and message of Christ. Is it enough to just have a bunch of ministries that do good things? Does that justify the amount of money sucked up by the church building overhead? So you have nice Bible study groups and children's ministry and an old-people's walking club. Are those same folks inviting lonely people over to dinner? If not, why not? Are you having dinner at your church mid-week when you could be having dinner with your actual neighbors?
See, we need to evaluate the effectiveness of what we are doing because it is not meeting the needs of the world. It's not enough to say that we are kind people who do good things. If we actually look at how we spend our time and money, we will see that we are still pretty individualistic people who spend most of our time and money on ourselves. Did Jesus not say he did not come for those who already have religion, but for those on the outside? He said it is not the well that need a doctor, but the sick. He said he came for the sick.
How much doctrine do we need to learn to justify sermon after sermon, year after year, spent just SITTING? Is all that sitting and listening equipping anybody to better LOVE? If anything I think it arguably makes people LESS loving because they are more focused on that doctrine than their actual human neighbor.
I will end with the Night of Peace Shelter.
http://www.nightofpeace.com/
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