HANGING ON my office wall is a beautiful picture painted in warm, muted earth-tones portraying an old church. Traditionally styled, of wood frame construction, with arched windows and a steeple and bell tower now silent, it sits on a country road, flanked by pine trees pointing heavenward.
I liked the picture well enough to have it framed. I still like it. But a good friend made an observation about it a while back that bothers me. He noticed that, though the old church is beautiful, it’s empty. Look at it more closely and you’ll see that it’s probably been abandoned. And I wonder why.
Was the theology of its worshipers hollow before it was? Did they go down the road to a church that preaches the Gospel? Or did they just quit going?
Did the members who once filled its pews fail to connect worship and real life, so that what happened in that church on Sundays finally seemed to them to be irrelevant to their Mondays?
Did its members fuss until some faction won the battle and the whole church lost the war?
Did they lose a generation to the genuine love of Christ as they wasted time trying to answer questions about old issues that nobody in their right mind is now asking?
Does that old building bear witness to a “faith of our fathers” that somehow never got passed on to the children in any meaningful way?
Did it cease to bear witness to a faith that encompasses all of life as it became just one more club vying for its members’ time?
Does somebody still claim membership there even though all of the people that used to sit on its pews are off batting, putting, bouncing, hitting, kicking, or throwing balls of all shapes and sizes, breathing the Creator’s air without pausing with others of faith to give thanks for it?
For some reason, the sounds of worship that once filled its sanctuary fill it no longer. I don’t know why that happened, but I know I’ve seen enough empty churches. I liked that old church a lot better when I thought it was full.