The Churches One Foundation is Jesus Christ Our Lord

Hymns in my Head. I get em. They are ghosts of a past. What's weird is I can sing them many times every verse.

The one floating around this morning is The Churches One Foundation. Even though I embrace the truth of the doctrine that the Church is founded on the Apostles and Prophets, on what are they founded? Jesus. Or they are faulty foundations.

It's the second verse that hit me this morning.

Elect from every nation,
yet one o'er all the earth,
her charter of salvation,
one Lord, one faith, one birth;
one holy Name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued.

I guess because I was in Wheaton getting a bagel Tuesday morning before I picked up the truck to make a delivery. I got a cup of coffee and overheard 5 pastors who were having a coffee klatch in a discussion I tuned into for a few minutes. In Wheaton if you swing a dead cat in a crowd you will hit a pastor. (I know of a pastor who came to Chicago from Africa having never visited America before, who was on his way to a conference in Wheaton and said upon seeing the large buildings of the city, "WOW, if this is Chicago, what must Wheaton be like". )

Wheaton for some Christians is like the biggest deal in the world as a base for so many ministries.

I digress.

The coffee klatch conversation revolved around offerings. Attendance and offerings. They weren't up. The average per was down. The attendance was down. Why weren't people giving.

Etc.

I have been a Pastor. I purposely never wanted to know what anyone gave. EVER. I really wasn't of the opinion that attendance to my services were much of an indicator either. I came, faithfully preached the word of God and if people came great, if not, I went on.

When we no longer could pay the bills, I closed the church. People voted with their feet.

I don't believe in democratic votes in a church. I think most churches are badly led when led by laodecean methods (of the people by the people). The only vote people have and should have in a church body is the feet attached to their lower torso. IF they don't like or approve of the leadership and after they express themselves are satisfied it is not going to change, they should vote with their feet and go where they are committed and planted. Lots of people are big talkers about being planted in the house of the Lord. They missed the point of the Parable of the Soils and Sower. Some places are weedy, rocky and hard. If you try to get planted there you will die. Go where the soil is deep and rich. Get planted there and thrive. Avoid the weedy rocky hard places. They don't want to produce fruit.

I read the post by my friend Barry Kolb. He talked of Nickels and Noses. It's worth reading and then stripping clean. It's actually a teaching that's been floating around for a while. It sounds good until you rip away the mask. I don't blame him for posting it, it's probably at one level worth considering. The truth is for those in the ministry it's mostly about job security for pastors and perpetuation of a church ministry. Insecurity in their ministry is what causes them to ask, "What if WE are failing? WE must measure to figure out if we are". The idea that we count progress by income and incomers is much like the idea of salvations per pew foot per year in many evangelical church's annual reports. It's not a question Jesus ever asked nor after Pentecost in the first hundred years of the church.

The church never apparently cared much about these issues at the beginning. Paul writes in instruction and thanksgiving about giving and behaviors of people who came into the fellowships. He never strained at the level most pastors do today, especially the young ones do about nickels and noses.

The fact is, like those young pastors in the bagel shop, they should really be concerned about things that were the outcome of what their concerns should really be. What is the nature of the hearts of our people and what can I do to help break of the fallow ground in them? Not how can we squeeze an extra nickel or extra nose they might bring out of them. The fact is if these young men really were producing the truth of God in fertile soils they would have to keep the door from being knocked down from people hungry for more truth. They would bring their friends and neighbors to hear. They would want to make sure the whole thing was going to continue and would give sacrificially to see to it.

That IS happening in other places even in America. Let's quit trying to manage God. Let's let him do what he will. If you succeed or fail, if you are faithful to your call, that's up to God. I was feeling pretty let down when New Life closed. I had invested a great deal of time in money into making it all work. When it did, my friend Todd asked me, "Gene, did God call you to help plant this church? If it succeeded, whose glory was that? If it failed who's decision was that? So no matter if it fails or succeeds, it's all God right? Then get over it, move on, find out what God wants to do and get on board". I did, do and am. Todd was right. We mostly count nickels and noses when we think it's about us. If we really believed it was about God we would count fruit and hearts sold out.

Nickels and Noses is always the wrong question answered for the wrong conclusion and no matter what answer you get it's the wrong information you need to be a more effective Christian Leader.

Hearts and Fruit is the right one. Bringing the Church to her rest. That's bringing the Church to maturity in Jesus, the ONE true foundation.

Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war
she waits the consummation
of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed,
and the great Church victorious
shall be the Church at rest.

Lord let me see a victorious church that's half full and struggling than a lukewarm church full and prosperous. That is a true Church at rest on the one true foundation.