The Wake
I mentioned that my brother-in-law passed and I decided to go to the wake. Well, it just so happens that his wake was at a funeral home almost 6 hours away. Unfortunately (for you), this means I had lots of thinking’ time just to get to it.
As I was driving through the KC area, I started noticing all the churches and I considered my own church attendance history.
I spent my young years in a Presbyterian Church (one that Abraham Lincoln had a pew) in Springfield, IL. You might think that it would be cold and joyless but it was a very vibrant church. I remember the growth in my mom’s faith walk while we attended there. I would also say that it provided me with a firm scriptural foundation that has served me since.
My family switched to a non-Denominational church about the time I turned twelve called Calvary Temple. When we first started attending, it was a growing church (very much like HHCC), with a vibrant pastor (again, like ours), and a congregation that cared about one another (like us). While we attended there, they built a new sanctuary with all the trappings. Shortly after I left for college, they opened a school (preschool through high school) and in the last 20 years started a new church on the opposite side on town.
When we got married, we married in a small older church with a grade school program that I think is down to about 30 families or less today. It is old and stodgy. We started going to a Lutheran church closer to where we lived and to the best of my knowledge, is still active today. There are definitely things I like about Lutheran liturgy and services but I’d say that, at this point in my life, it wouldn’t feed my faith walk as well.
When we moved to New Orleans, we never really settled into a church. We attended several. Then we moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and similar to New Orleans, never really settled into a church. While we lived there, we moved to a suburb called Sun Prairie and found a church called Bethlehem Lutheran. While, I felt that the Lutheran Liturgy had the same short comings I felt before, we found a Pastor and Youth Pastor that wanted to teach and we wanted to learn. While we were there, they organized a choir (which we joined) and built a new sanctuary. I am not saying building is the indication of success but of the growth of the church body.
Then we came to Topeka. We joined a Lutheran church and rushed to volunteer. Soon, we both hit our heads against either limitations on expectations (they wanted a contemporary service but constrained), or unreasonable expectations (they wanted a new sanctuary but didn’t have the need to justify it).
We moved to a large church in Topeka. They had great pastors as well. But it is big. They had a men’s breakfast and that convinced me that there was a real need for men to gather in a space where they could interact without their wives. But it is big. I felt lost in the magnitude of the building. Ironically, I led a men’s devotion group and I think I still have a key to the building. I doubt they are worried about it.
Then we joined Highland Heights. I’ve already mentioned great pastors and leaders, a loving and supportive church body and programs to help you in your faith walk. All these observations have been found by me to be important in my desired church body discovery.
This brings me back to my drive to my brother-in-law’s wake. As I drove by all these churches, I found myself wondering why we could not, for the greater good of the Christian Church collectively, consolidate down to work more collaboratively. That’s when I realized that the reason we didn’t stay in New Orleans, for example, was it was just too big of a city for my families’ happiness. We chose to move to move to a smaller area (Madison) and once we moved there, we moved to an even smaller suburb (Sun Prairie) before we found our families’ happiness. Our move to Topeka, while not planned, was more of a lateral move from one similarly sized community to another.
My point is that each of us have spiritual needs. Sometimes a setting speaks to those needs and sometimes it falls short. It seems that the best we can do is to enthusiastically brag about what makes us happy and get out of the way of letting the Holy Spirit speak to their soul.
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” - 1 Corinthians 3:1-23 ESV
