Sinners Like Me

I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not have a church.  The first church was mostly a Sunday School on an Air Force Base and the last one was a small church attended by only a few.  In between there was one which proudly pointed to a historical marker and another one so new it still had the new church smell.  Some were surrounded by cemeteries and others by bustling neighborhoods.  Each of them were different; yet, all of them were the same. 

 

And while I have been in many of those churches as the chief spiritual leader entrusted with the care of the souls who worshipped there, I know that each one had a shaping role in my own life.  In the beginning the church provided a place to learn about God and the heaven where my father had gone.  It cared for my soul on a perilous journey that went from doubt and skepticism to outright rebellion and stubborn self-sufficiency.  It graced my life with baptism, ordination, the sacred words of marriage, spiritual nurture, and a place to serve the Christ who called me to a life time of preaching the gospel.

 

Though I have served the church almost all my life, the scales have never measured equal.  What I received from it always weighs heavier than what I able to give.  There is a debt I can never repay.  There is a love for the church that has only grown with the passing of the years.  It troubles me when the church that I have known and loved is troubled.   Some of its trouble is its own doing as it has sought to be all things to all people when the reality is that the church can only be the church when "I believe in Jesus" is its creed and the Word of God is its cornerstone.  I pray that the church will continue to be the presence of Jesus in the world that has saving and shaping power for sinners like me who are still to come.