Do not be anxious...
I’m not going to lay it at the feet of the “being the first-born” excuse, even if that is indeed what I am. Still, I’m not sure why growing up I’ve always had an overarching desire to do things as they should be done. Doing homework, why wouldn’t I want to diagram the sentences correctly? In one quarter of high school the teacher was astonished when he let me know I hadn’t gotten one algebra question wrong. My naïve thought was “Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do?”
That one quarter is, of course, the stunning exception. I am unable to do things as they should be done. I am as fallible and error prone as anyone. Thankfully, I’ve come to be what Duane Mehl, a recovered perfectionist, entitled his book, “At Peace with Failure: how God Gives Grace to Live Beyond Your Shattered Dreams.”
I can still be anxious about things coming up on my schedule or calendar. When I confessed this to a colleague, his response was, in effect, “4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”(Philippians 4:4-7).
These are good words from the God Who loves us and saves us in Christ Jesus, our Lord. These are good words to keep in mind as we get back to the school.
Digital opportunities
A few of us on the staff have been taking part in a series of webinars about discipleship. This week’s preparation for the webinar had some startling statistics with respect to what was described as “Digital Disruption.”
From A.D. 2000 to A.D. 2020 Sunday newspaper circulation went from 50 million papers to 25 million. People are getting more and more of their information online. In that same time frame the sales from department stores declined the same percentage. We shop online.
With respect to churches in the United States, the percentage of people who belonged to a local congregation was 67% in 2000. In 2020 it was reduced to 47%. For the first time in America, church membership is in the minority. As for the average weekly attendance of a congregation, it fell from 137 people to 65 people – and that was before the pandemic. In our church body, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, we have lost more than 30% of our membership in that time. (Thank you, Rev. Zach Zehnder, for these numbers).
So, do we throw up our hands? Throw in the towel? No. Our loving Lord is still in control. We have work He has called us to do and that involves bringing His saving grace to a world deeply in need of the gift of forgiveness.
What then? It was suggested – and I believe that this is true – that we need to make much better use of our digital presence. I will always maintain that I would rather be face to face with people, dealing with cashiers and clerks in stores, for example. That is especially true when the body of Christ gathers for worship, witness, and service.
But might we do a better job of curating what we do when together and offering some things very much like them online? That will be a major consideration as we move into the days ahead. We will need to be wary of any artificial intelligence (AI) tomfoolery. But social media is here to stay and a tool to be used.
We read in 1 Chronicles 12:32 Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek to understand our times and how effectively to apply the Word of the Lord to them.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active,
Patrick Henry Reardon wrote recently in Touchstone magazine, as he so frequently does. Here he provided for me an illustration of Isaiah 55, where God has written: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Reardon: I have a theory that God can use anybody, “in a pinch.”
I cite an example from my time of teaching in a certain seminary. It concerns two very frivolous seminarians, who made a game, of sorts, in their preaching.
These two fellows were assigned to do a service each Sunday afternoon at a nursing home. You may know the sort of service; it involved very old, frail people in wheelchairs, gathered in the common room, singing “Rock of Ages,” “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and the like, the high point of the service being the sermon.
Well, here’s the story, if you can believe it. These two meatheads took turns, Sunday by Sunday, doing the preaching. The problem was that they were preaching only for their own entertainment. They crafted their sermons as a kind of entre nous joke.
On this particular Sunday, it was the intent of the preacher to mention as many “animals” as possible in his sermon, to see if he could outnumber the “plants” that the other guy mentioned in his sermon on the previous Sunday.
Well, here’s what happened. About halfway through the sermon, one of the old men in a wheelchair suddenly flung himself onto his knees, raised his arms to heaven, and gave his life to God, repenting of his sins and making a full confession of faith.
The game was over! The two seminarians suddenly realized they had been playing with fire.
I love Annie Dillard’s assessment of what we should be doing on Sunday mornings: “we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
While part of society may view what we do in our worship as something childish and naïve, with our loving and gracious God in attendance it is never child’s play.