There’s an old Yiddish proverb that asks, “If I try to be like him, who will be like me?” In this question is an affirmation of the important uniqueness of everyone and everything. To be created is to be cast by the Great Director to play a part in His great play. Never be another’s understudy, then – learn your own lines and hit your own marks.
The church was founded and created by God to be the agent of salvation in the world. What the ark was to Noah and his family, the church would be and now is to Christ and His family. And just as God gave to Noah very specific details on how the big boat was to be built; the church’s design and make-up was also neatly blueprinted for its builders and custodians. In recent years, it seems the church in the West has grown insecure in its design and despairing of the peculiar part it’s been asked to play. Past generations built grand spaces, big enough to accommodate the entire town and on most Sundays it seemed like the entire town crowded in. But today, the pews are largely empty and the rafters no longer ring with the hearty chorus of hundreds. The population has flocked to other venues to be about other things. There is a great temptation for the church to be somebody else; something more hip, more attractive, more relevant. Our reading for this week is a fascinating Op-Ed by Rachel Evans published in the Washington Post back in 2015. Entitled: Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church “cool”; Evans offers her insights as one who grew up in the church, left the church, and has found it again. There’s plenty to consider here and much to discuss. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts this Sunday morning at the Roundtable!
