Psalm 127
This is an anxious time in the life of our church. Whenever a congregation needs to come together and talk about change, there is anxiety that goes along with it. This is especially true when the change has to do with the future of buildings and spaces that have become sacred to us. When we gather together this evening to talk about the future of our church, it will be an anxious moment.
And yet, this is not the first
time we have had this conversation. When Carl Burke, Bob Puckett and a few
others planned what was described as “an exploratory” Christmas Eve service way
back in 1987, there were no certainties about how it would work out. But they
talked it through and the service was held in the Cooper Communities’
The first sanctuary of our church
was Art and Iris Spurrier’s living room! A service
was planned for Palm Sunday –
I imagine it must have been a VERY anxious time when the idea of building our own sanctuary was first presented. In Worth Wilkerson’s history of our church, he writes, “Concerned that the lack of space would limit future growth, the Church Council, in late 1991, appointed a building committee.” There were 186 members at the time! That’s only about 90 giving units. And the cost of a new building would be about 1.4 million dollars! What an outlandish idea! But they talked it through, and figured out a way to make it happen! And here we are.
It’s a beautiful sanctuary, isn’t it? My heart thrills
whenever I walk in, because I find myself thinking back to the first time I saw
it. I was a candidate to succeed Dr. Carl Burke when he decided it was time to
retire. Church members were really worried. They had a new building, a big
mortgage, and the uncertainty of a new pastor – from
Ten years ago when I arrived, this sanctuary was very different than today. The blue panels up in the front weren’t blue. The only stained glass window was this one up in front, and it had been only recently installed. Before that there was just a huge clear glass window and when the sun came through, it shined in the eyes of the worshipers. That’s why some of our original members sit in the seats they do! They found places where the sun didn’t shine in their eyes! As I recall, the members dealt with this by installing a big window shade that could be pulled down. The new stained glass window was a welcome relief. But it changed the natural look of the sanctuary. Sometimes change is important to make a ministry more effective. Even so, change can be unsettling.
Did you know that ten years ago, the pews only went back about halfway? The coffee fellowship was held behind them. But as our ministry grew, we added pews, and some beautiful new stained glass windows, and a sound system….oh, talk about a problem! The original sound system was a round ball that hung from the ceiling. We called it “sputnik” because that’s what it looked like. It was more of a factory paging system than a real church sound system. So changes were made. Lots of them. Over and over again. Currently, we have about 10-kazillion dollars invested in our sound system and still we have problems! Plus, many of us are going deaf!
New pastor. New pews. New windows. New chancel. New
services. New people. Do you know that over a thousand people have joined our
church in the last ten years? When our
Well, the first thing we’ll do is talk about it. What will happen tonight at the Town Hall Meeting is the same thing we have done over and over again since the very beginning of our church. We’ll come together as brothers and sisters in Christ. We’ll talk respectfully. We’ll listen respectfully. We’ll pray. And somewhere along the line, God will show us the way.
Tom Troeger has written a parable about a church facing change. It is a parable that, more broadly, is about the dramatic shifts that are taking place in the larger Christian Church these days. More narrowly though, it describes a local church like ours, facing a problem and needing to solve it. Imagine above you in the nave, if you will, a gigantic mosaic of God the Father Almighty. Listen to the parable:
Some said
there had been too much rain
and the roof
long cracked after years of stress
gave way from water seeping in.
Others said
what fell from the heavens
had nothing to do with it,
that the earth had shifted
and the church walls
had pushed out toward the city market so that the massive mosaic of the Almighty Father
had fallen in and left a hole,
a silhouette of the icon
that used to command the whole church
from high above the nave.
Services now
were held under the God-shaped hole:
prayers said
hymns sung
infants baptized
sermons preached
offerings made
communion celebrated
couples wed
the dead remembered.
Meanwhile reconstruction began,
but it turned out harder than planned.
Some folks had taken home
bits of the original mosaic
as a piece of devotion or historical curiosity,
and when it was discovered
there was not enough left to restore
the original ancient grandeur
debates erupted if they should even try
to recreate what was lost.
Some said
they should begin and finish the project
as quickly as possible
because people were not coming as they used to
since the icon had collapsed.
Others pointed out
new people were entering the church
curious about the place
in a way they never were before.
And these newcomers joined
with those who had always been scared
by the icon’s fierce eyes
to suggest they replace the old image
with a new one.
The differences about what to do
broke into conflict
so that for now the construction
was nearly halted,
though some workers
tried to assemble the roof in bits and pieces.
But without an overall plan
nothing would stay put.
Even the stars that surrounded the hole
began to fall from the ceiling
so that another party arose
suggesting they take down the entire
edifice and start all over anew –
Except that the most devout
could not bear to lose this or that altar
where they had prayed so long
and the stones were worn smooth
by the knees of many generations.
So for the time being
all that was done
was to rope off the area beneath
the God-shaped hole
to make sure no one was hit by a piece
that would fall from time to time
from a cracked angel or star
and to pray
that people would keep coming
while the church continued to be,
as the sign alerting those who entered said:
Under Reconstruction.[1]
They who have ears to hear, let them hear.
A parking lot that was once more than enough is now not nearly enough – especially for those who have trouble walking – and driving! Sometimes, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea for us all to buy bumper cars – like the ones at the amusement park! That’d be safer, and more fun!
A sanctuary that was once more
than enough is now not nearly enough. And watching the
And just like the God-shaped hole in the parable, our God-shaped hole caused by the growth of the Community church, produces in us many of the same anxieties and conflicting ideas we see in the story.
Perhaps we should do nothing with the God-shaped hole. Perhaps we should renovate and remodel. Perhaps we should tear everything down and build anew.
I don’t know what the best answer is. But here is what I do know:
The real achievement in the brief history of Tellico Village Community Church is not that we have built beautiful buildings and grounds, but rather, that we have been faithful to what God is building in the world – a kingdom where all God’s children are welcomed, a community where abused children are protected, and hungry people fed, and young people nurtured and educated, and old people cared for all their days, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed and lived out through the lives of ordinary people like you and me.
The purpose of the Church is not to build monuments either to God or to ourselves. The purpose of the Church is to serve.
Tonight, we’ll get together and talk about how we can serve the Lord.
Again.