Encircling the town green in Anytown, U.S.A. are the key components of a healthy, symbiotic, and whole community. You’ll find a library and a bank, the Town Hall and a general store. There’ll be a lodging house, a sheriff’s office, and a pub. There should also be a big, grand building with a steeple.
Governments have long made room on the green for a church and churches have long prized their position of importance in the community. But, should churches simply settle for being a pew for Joe Blow to sit in when he’s not on the barstool or in the reading room or at the teller’s window; part of a well-balanced meal for the modern mind? Ben Franklin loved Christianity because it made for good citizens. He saw it as a means to an end; a necessary component for the building a vibrant country. But the kingdom Christ established here on earth was intended to be an end in and of itself. Jesus wouldn’t be as interested in people going to church as He would be in seeing them being the church. The bone thrown to us this week is a little article written by our 26th President in a 1917 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. In it, Teddy Roosevelt gives his ten reasons for Americans to consider going to church. We’ll look to see which ones we agree with, which ones we don’t, and which ones are missing. I’m trusting there’s plenty of marrow in the bone – see you this Sunday morning!
