The last couple of times I have been in church, I have caught myself wondering whether or not we are getting bigger or smaller?
Not sure why it’s become an important metric to me because it never has been of much concern for me before. Maybe it’s because I am getting old and I just don’t like to see things not be successful. Maybe it’s because my John has joined the ranks of ministers and I know that its something that since as his life’s vocation, he will think about it. Maybe it’s because understanding exactly what I believe and why has become so important to me, I think everyone else must feel the same.
Whatever the reason, every Sunday for the last several, I have wondered to myself, are more people coming or are more leaving?
I have tried to gauge it from sitting where I always sit, in the back of the church on the left hand side, but that didn’t get me the right perspective.
Then I decided to take notice when I stood in the choir loft, singing, up high enough to have a good vantage point. Looking at the congregation that way sure seemed to me to be more empty red chairs out there then I remembered seeing.
Then something astonishing happened.
During one song, an especially good one, one that I am certain God was hearing and maybe even singing along on, people began to stand. It took only a few minutes, and the whole congregation was standing, singing as if in one voice, and the red seats, well I couldn’t see them any longer.
You remember I told you that my Dad told me and I know for a fact that sometimes God bends down and whispers in your ear a truth?
Well, there is\t was, as plain as day, another truth, straight from God’s heart to mine.
God was illustrating to me, his child, something very certain and it wasn’t really about church attendance.
Standing up, for whatever you believe in is as about as powerful as you can be.
Numbers don’t matter nearly as much as having the courage, or the fortitude, or the wherewithal, or the conviction, or the courage to make a stand. You can get caught up in the wrong questions, you can figure that little day to day decisions about being courageous don’t matter, you can be afraid to do what is right for a hundred reasons, but if you want to make a difference, stand up for what is right, or good, or worthy. Sitting, will never work, even if there is a whole church full of you, or a whole family of you, a whole team of you, or a whole board room full of you.
Happy Monday, I hope when you get the chance this week, to stand up, and you are bound to, you do!
“Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.”
John Wayne
