How Did We Get Here?

SUNDAY, June 8 – I worshipped today in a tiny little Church in a one traffic light town. There were fewer than 25 people in attendance. The music consisted of three hymns and a chorus. They took an offering. The music director sang a solo. It was the best he could do. There was a simple sermon on llove – what it is and how to practice it. Folks hung around afterwards to talk and encourage one another.

It was a far cry from Sunday a week ago.

That Sunday I sat in a 4000 seat auditorium. It wasn’t full, but close. Professional musicians performed flawlessly, the lights and sound and props and glitz were absolutely Broadway revisited. There was a simple sermon, a video projection, on the benefits of God’s grace. It seemed as it ended that people rushed out (though I am sure some stayed around – somewhere, to encourage one another) because there was another service to begin soon after the one I was in.

The two services (Churches) were about as opposite as salt and pepper, water and soda, night and day.

I can’t (won’t) decide if one was “better” than the other, or one more effective than the other. I can’t see the results in the long term – or even the short term. If anyone was changed by either, I will probably never know.

I believe both groups, large and small, had the same purpose. I believe both preachers spoke the Truth from God’s Word.

I also believe that neither one is on track to change our World. Neither one is reaching their area for Christ. (Of course one is addressing more people than the other – but I speak thinking on a percentage basis) Neither one is influencing the direction of our Nation to the degree that we can see change on the horizon.

Is God’s command to go, teach, reach, mature, bring righteous change a lost cause? Is there hope for change that does not leave our children living in a Godless America?

I am sadden by our failure. I surely think God is as well.