Two
weeks ago you’ve seen the “doctors’ chart”
– our strongest quality is our passionate
spirituality. The power to raise the
quality of our leadership, make functional our structures, and to engage in
evangelism is in our spiritual passion.
Meanwhile
I am reflecting on being labelled as a Laodicean church (Revelation 3: 14-20) –
it thinks itself passionate, and well off.
We use quite often this term to excuse our complacency. Laodicea is also described as “rich”. Within
the local church context it may not be apparent, and we may more often hear ‘we
have no money.” Even when it comes to two-three hundred dollars item – the
comments are “the church cannot afford….”
But, when we add together
the value of tithes and offerings, the value of church properties and
administrative centers, the value of church-run or church-aligned health care
systems, the value of para-church ministries, the total runs in tens of
billions of dollars. It’s just that
money are tied up in the institution building.
Richard Halvorson once
wrote, "When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy;
when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government; when the Europeans
got it, they turned it into a culture; and when the Americans got it, they
turned it into a business."
Some pastors use the Laodicean message to put guilt
trips on their congregations for not working hard enough to build up the
institution. Unfortunately, even our solution to our Laodicean institutionalism
is more Laodicean institutionalism. Our institutional churches across North
America are shrinking, but our institutional infrastructure costs are largely
constant.
What do money have to do
with spirituality? Let me present to you
this Biblical idea: all Biblical books have a chiastic (reversely parallel
matching pairs) structures, including the book of Revelation, where 1 is
matching 7, 2–6, 3–5, and the 4th is in the centre (applicable to
all sets of sevens). One must realise
the similarity between Laodicea and Ephesus – both were warned about lost of
first love, of passion. Laodicean
solution is similar to the Ephesian church condition – doing the first works. We
must consider the works of the first Apostolic Church to understand what
passionate spirituality means.
Recently I heard a comment
from a church member that the passion of the first love is gone. I quoted something I heard from one of my
seminary profs, Russell Burrill “it’s not normal to lose one’s first love. When you really know Jesus, the love for
Jesus should increase, not decrease. The longer one walks with Jesus the more
one should be in love with Jesus. Could
it be that our Laodicean problem is in being so self-absorbed in building the
institution and offering “programs” that we lost sight of Jesus?
C.S. Lewis wrote: "For it must be true,
as an old writer says, that he who has God and everything else has no more than
he who has God only." What do we focus on and pride
ourselves about? Our institution, our
church, our structure and programming?
The picture everyone knows is Christ knowing on the door, asking to be
invited in. Lately even this picture had
been “institutionalized” – Christ knowing on the United Nation’s door, or
Christ knowing on the Church’s door.
Yes, He wants to be in our church, by being in every home, in every
person’s heart. The spirituality God
wants is us letting Him in, that he may sup with us, that we may know Him
personally, and relate intimately to His heart.
I pray that as we consider
improvements needed we would not seek a quick fix, institutional structural
changes, but a a spiritual awakening of love for Jesus.
