Pastor Devin Strong

Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church

I said recently in a sermon, ’’The Bible is a tough book."

Or more accurately, it’s a library of 66 books written by many different people from disparate cultures over at least a 2,000-year period from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New Testament. 

As a good Lutheran, I believe emphatically that the Bible has God’s Spirit woven through it from beginning to end, but I also believe that the Bible contains human skills, perspectives, and biases, as well as plenty of challenging passages, like the one in Genesis where God initially asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar, or the passage from Ephesians where Paul admonishes, “Wives be subject to your husbands.” I am not going there! In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me,” a word that is every bit as hard as Jesus’ words about divorce later in this book. But one of the most challenging texts in all of scripture is when Jesus seemingly calls a gentile woman a dog as she seeks healing for her sick daughter.” It is no secret that church attendance is on the decline.

According to a recent Gallop poll, only 41% of Americans are in any worship service at least monthly. It is tempting for professional Christians like me to blame that on Jesus. Maybe Jesus is just too radical, too countercultural, for the greedy and self-centered world that we live in, and no doubt that is one factor. After all, “Take up your cross and follow me” isn’t exactly a visitor-friendly slogan for a young family in search of a spiritual respite and a good youth program for their kids! Still, the gap between Jesus-believers and churchgoers in the U.S. is huge. 76% of Americans say that they believe in Jesus, and 68% say that Jesus is an important figure in their spiritual life.

So more than a quarter of all Americans—27%--believe that Jesus is important but don’t bother to gather with others to praise him on a regular basis.

Again, it’s tempting to place the blame elsewhere— say on young people who are too lazy to get out of bed and come to church these days! But that’s too simple and convenient. I am afraid that the gap between positive opinions about the Lord and positive opinions about God’s church lies more with us, the faithful stalwarts in any congregation, than anybody outside the church.

First, I am afraid it’s about what nonchurchgoers see.

Too often we see news stories about large-church pastors buying airplanes and massive homes as well as smaller- church-pastors having affairs with someone on staff.

These sins need to be aired, but they give all Christians a bad name.

Second, I am afraid that it’s about what nonchurchgoers don’t see and hear. The public does not see Christians out helping hurting and broken people often enough. An exception to this is the way that the public and churches came together recently to assist flood victims in our area.

Keep it up for the long haul, Richmond Hill!

In short, the world needs to see more Christians acting like Jesus. People need to see us serving humbly, responding graciously to people who are different from us, and owning our faults. The Bible may be a challenging book, but the biggest challenge to growing God’s church is imperfect Christians, like me.