Monday Meditation: New Beginnings, Part one: The Spirit comes
News reporters and culture commentators often talk about the church these days, and their observations are usually critical. The church is behind the times, some say. The church has lost touch, we are told. The church discriminates against women, has prejudice against minorities, and ignores the poor, they add, and this is why the church is losing members.
Frustration within
The negative conclusions are not totally unwarranted. Those inside the church also fret about problems they’re seeing. And even the most conservative church leaders wrestle with how to serve today’s world with a 2,000-year-old message.
• Some members make this even more difficult. They cling to familiar forms from the past; inside the church is the only place they’re not buffeted by the assaults of change, and they hate change at church.
• Meanwhile, some innovators seem to depend on the latest marketing tactics and entertainment methods to attract the uninvolved masses around them.
• Many others long for the church to attack racism, poverty, and patriarchy and emphasize discipleship, worship, and sacrifice.
Agreement is possible
It's easy to criticize. It’s far more challenging to lead toward the right solutions. Whatever we decide, we must agree on this: The church is not ours to mold into whatever shape seems best to us. The church came from God.
Nothing shows that more clearly than today’s passage. God intervened with miraculous power to convince people from all over the world that a new day had come. Jesus had left his tomb and returned to Heaven, thus proving he was indeed the Son of God. Now this other-worldly outburst of wind and flame allowed those from many nations to hear just one message.
God was doing something new. The church began with a jolt of his power, and those who first witnessed it could not ignore his presence.
We do well to look for him at work even now, because God has not introduced anything better than the church to serve and strengthen a broken world.
Many caregivers know this well. They have been helped and encouraged by a church that combines words of hope with acts of kindness. Food, flowers, respite. Books, cards, and Bible verses. Prayers, so many prayers.
You might call the result a succession of quiet miracles. Not as attention-getting, perhaps, as the singular spectacle in Jerusalem so many centuries ago. But just as life-changing for those who see his presence in the hands and hearts of those who do his work.
We may wish and work to improve the church, to call it back to its roots, to expose and then heal its weaknesses and brokenness. But we who have felt its power when we needed it most will never seek to replace or decide to abandon it. God gave us the church. And we are very glad.
Read: Acts 2:1-12
Pray: Thank you, God, for the church. Even with my responsibilities of caregiving, help me to be part of the solution to brokenness in the church today.
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