Faithfully Yours - Eliminating childish ways

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Published on Saturday, July 11, 2015

By Neil Strohschein

The Neepawa Banner

Three weeks ago, I wrote about some of the challenges that are facing rural churches. It’s no secret that many are struggling to survive. Many more are on life support. God only knows how many of these churches will still be open five years from now.

But I also noted that the closure of a church building does not mean that the church in that community has ceased to exist. It is still there. It is still alive. It may be barely visible, but it is certainly not dead—at least not yet. But it will die if, after the building has been sold and the congregation has disbanded, the church in that community is left to survive on its own.

By now, I am quite sure you’ve guessed that I make a sharp distinction between the church that Christ promised to build and the religious organizations with their buildings, boards and budgets. That’s how I see it today. When I was a child, my understanding of the true nature of the church was far different. As I matured, so did my concept of church.

Let me explain what I mean. I jokingly tell people that I have attended church from the age of “minus nine months” onward. My parents were people of deep faith for whom church attendance was not an option. We attended Sunday School (both my parents were SS teachers), morning and evening services and mid-week prayer meeting. For me, “going to church” meant getting dressed in suit and tie, going into town and sitting through a service that was sure to bore me to tears.

My parents used different phrases to get me to show reverence for the church building. “We are going to God’s house,” they said; which was another way of saying that I needed to be on my best behavior because if I wasn’t, God would tell Mom what I had done, she would tell Dad and he would apply his personal “board of education” to my “seat of knowledge.” Ouch!!

I were also taught (quite subtly, but it was there) that the beliefs in our church were closer to what the Scriptures taught than those of the other churches in town. Six years in two different theological colleges and 38 years of ministerial experience (each of which had its share of ministerial mistakes) purged those thoughts from my mind and opened my eyes to what the Scriptures really teach concerning the origin, composition and function of “the church.”

In his treatise on love (found in 1 Corinthians 13), St. Paul says this: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child and I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”

That is what I had to do. I had to learn to see the “church” as the Scriptures see it—not as an organization, but as an organism—as a living entity. And I had to realize that members of Christ’s church can be found in all religious denominations and faith traditions.

No where in the Scriptures is any denomination identified as “the true church.” Just as the head of the church can not be confined, so his church can not be confined. The New Testament uses three terms to describe the church—a body, a family and a kingdom. We will examine each of these concepts and show how, by understanding them, we can prepare for the changes that are coming in the world of organized religion. We will do that beginning next week.