Taking Issue – By Rev. Andy Cornell
As church buildings go, it’s unremarkable. It towers above the modest homes on the side street, but its overgrown shrubs, weather-beaten doors and aging sign speak of resignation. It’s down and out, bruised and its people long past retirement. You might be surprised, as I was, to know that the interior sings a different tune. It was alive. The 25-foot tall stained glass windows were radiant in the brilliant morning sun. I could only stare and take it all in.
The pastor’s message that Sunday was a call to be God’s people in the world and to do ministry wherever we are placed. Perhaps that ministry is found in the hallowed beauty of a building filled with the ghosts of thousands of faithful, whose names are scribed into dusty membership lists. Or perhaps it is in the humble jobs we have, ministering quietly to the ones God puts in our presence. God works powerfully when we are used in unlikely places.
At the end of the service, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to sit still in the quiet sanctuary, alone, taking turns facing each direction to absorb the stained glass-filtered light.
This a metaphor for the church in 2014: beautiful buildings – outwardly uninviting yet filled with the word of God, with spectacular stained glass witness – but many of them empty, 10 souls on a Sunday morning in a sanctuary built for 200. What went wrong? How on earth did this happen?
On my drive home, the point of the pastor’s message became clear. This rural road is the mission field, that home I just passed, the store and crossroads restaurant and ball diamond and the community hall or wherever people gather – all filled with people adrift.
The beautiful sanctuary feeds the senses. But God’s people need to be among the lost, where the Holy Spirit feeds the soul. The church is there, wherever two or three are gathered, praying and exploring and proclaiming God’s word, building each other up. But the mission is among the lost, the ones who fill the restaurants on Sunday morning, or sleep in, or putter around the yard, or drift in and out, seemingly without purpose.
The church is not stained glass, as gracious as it proclaims God’s love and tells his story of creation, fall and redemption. The church is where God’s people are praying and living, a silent or noisy witness among the people, not necessarily in a building used one or two hours a week.
Rev. Andy Cornell is the Pastor at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Dresden. You can reach him in the following ways: at the office 519-683-2442, on his cell/text 226-229-1695, or by email – amcpastor1@gmail.com.
