In my pre-Christian life I worked in a hospital, mostly in the harsh and frantic arena of the operating theatre.
I can remember years ago in my training watching a couple of post-mortem procedures.
I remember watching the pathologist at work and thinking that it wasn't a very happy type of job really.
The purpose of a PM is to ascertain and verify what caused a person to die.
The pathologists I saw at work were pure genius. They were exceptionally brilliant people who knew exactly what they were doing.
It was fascinating to see them at work.
Why am I bringing this morbid subject up?
The other day someone spoke to me at length about the state of their Church. For a whole hour I just listened to a very passionate dissection of the problems this particular Church had and the reasons that it was dying.
In fact the emotional discourse ended with that very statement, "We are already dead!"
I think the person telling me all this was a bit unnerved by the fact I didn't say a thing.
I never spoke once.
Why?
Because I really am fed up with that kind of statement.
I hear it loads of times. "The church is dying, the church is dead, the post Christendom church is this, the post modern church is that." Tradition is killing the church, contemporary church is the way forward, we need a new leader, they should never have appointed so and so, and so on and so on.
Anyone else sick and tired of all that tripe?
Or is it just me?
And frankly?
I'd rather focus on the life of the church than its death.
The church seems to have some seriously passionate ecclesiastical pathologists.
Except.
Those who do this aren't experts like real pathologists. So when they perform their churchy post mortems they so often come to the wrong conclusions, they so often get the anatomy wrong. They continually use the wrong instruments, they all to often determine the wrong cause of death.
Worse?
They verify the death and sign the death certificate. When its still alive!
A few weeks ago, at one of the Corps Dawn and I lead, Sacriston to be precise, at the end of a Sunday service after the last prayer, the people decided to just surround Dawn and I and just pray for us. The meeting had finished, the stage lights were out, the big screen turned off, the place was intimately lit, someone got up and called the church to surround Dawn and I and they prayed over us. They could see we were in need of some encouragement that night. I don't want to dramatize it but the power that filled Dawn and I was much needed and felt incredibly uplifting. A few years ago, just before Dawn and I came to the North East, people were saying Sacriston Salvation Army was a dying place. The ecclesiastical pathologists were out in force performing their Post mortems. Maybe it was, but the fact is it wasn't dead. We just needed to lift our eyes up to God. That Might not sound very groundbreaking to some I understand that, but the spontaneity of the people that night was a demonstration of the life the Spirit of God has breathed into us.
So I've seen God revive a struggling Salvation Army Corps.
Give it life in an instant.
The same power is available in full to all.
So I would prefer to talk about life in the church rather than its death.
I think concentrating on death robs us of life.
If we spent as much time concentrating on what the possibilities are to reach a hard world as we do concentrating on dissecting the seemingly dead Church then I believe we would see greater victories than ever before.
So what does the Spirit of God say today.
Test this.
The Spirit of God says that I meant it when I set before you life or death and urged you to choose life. There is way to much work to do to be held back by trying to find the reasons why the church seems to be dying. Now is the time to look to the panorama, the vision, and the vision is me. Look to the horizon and shift your eyes to that place where the possible lies. That place where the fire is. That place where the ability to change is. Take your hands off the death. I have envisioned you to seek life not death. Direct your knowledge, your skills, your passions to the bringing of life. Are you tired child of being part of the death talk? Then follow me, put all you have into the life I have given you. The world needs a church that's alive. And it is alive because I am alive. My heart beats within it and yes there will always be those who choose death but you child, you would be far better choosing life. Speak words of life over everything you are. I will be with you all the way. I love you. Your father.
I for one will leave the ecclesiastical pathology to God. The beyond expert God. I want to be part of a church that is full of life. And I want to hear statements like "the church will be alive until Jesus comes back!"
The only way is to turn all our attention in him.
He is life.
