FOCUSING ON OUR STRENGTH

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 4^th 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.