Words from WW Blog

A couple of months ago, Carol and I took a long road trip back to Michigan and Ohio to see family and friends. As we traveled through southern Illinois on the first Sunday we were on the road, she tapped into the streamed worship service of Colorado Springs First Baptist. The pastor, Dan Schumacher, is an excellent speaker, and I was looking forward to hearing his delivery of the morning message.

Unfortunately, Carol could receive the video of the service, but there was no audio. It was probably the area we were driving through, rural and sparse. Whatever the reason, the picture was clear, but the sound was missing. When Dan began the message, his mouth was moving but he wasn’t saying anything.

It occurred to me that the silence of the moment was a metaphor for the church. Not necessarily Pastor Dan, but there are a lot of times when the church is speaking, but it isn’t saying anything. I suppose I could say the same thing about our politicians, but the communities of Christ-followers were never meant to mirror the tendencies of society and the institutions that hold the power within it.

Sometimes it seems that churches across our country are more focused on selling their program than having the conviction to follow the One who went before them. It is drawn to trends and trinkets, instead of speaking truth and being proclaimers of grace.

And so there is a lot of speaking going on, a lot of words being strung together to create sweet-sounding rhyme, but nothing is being heard. There is a picture, but no message.

For me, I recognize that on too many occasions I was blowing smoke when there was no fire, speaking but not considering, preaching with no purpose.

And now, I recognize that in recent years I have been so saturated with a gospel that has been rolled in glitter that I need to go back and study the core. I’m digging through all of my old theology books from my seminary days (Moltmann, Brunner, Barth, Hans Kung) and beginning to take a self-guided refresher course on the reasons I believe what I believe. I need to blow the dust off the covers and hear the crackling of pages that have not seen the light of day in several decades.

In essence, I want to hear the wise and deep echoes from the past to help me re-understand what I once knew and what is at the core of my belief.

This entry was posted on September 3, 2023 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.