The Great Opportunity

These months of church doors being shut are likely to have a profound and long lasting effect on what we have come to define as church.  It is doubtful that absence has made the heart grow fonder.  If anything, absence has made the heart more fearful.  Those entrusted with leadership in the church surely struggle with the tension created by the needs of the institutional structure of the church and the spiritual needs of the people who populate its membership rolls.   And, of course, both these concerns are complicated by health and safety issues.   There is little wiggle room.

 

It would seem that the important questions for the leadership of the church are the questions of those who are uncertain about returning.  Those who are struggling to re-enter the life of the church are not really concerned about what is necessary for the survival of the institutional church.  Getting things back to the way they were may be the goal of leadership, but it is hardly the goal of a membership accustomed to living without the weekly influence of Sunday ministries.  What seems to be lacking in many strategies for re-opening is the kind of eyes which bring into view a church not dependent on things like finances, staffing, and buildings. 

 

The great opportunity being presented to the church is the opportunity to care for spiritual needs with fresh eyes.  Within this great opportunity is also the greatest danger.  If leadership can only work to return the church to its former status quo, it will simply be re-instating the things which domesticate spiritual life into a form of decent moral behavior and lock away once again the life changing power of the cross.   But, for those who have the courage, the faith, and the vision to forsake what was for what might be if the Spirit is given freedom to lead may indeed be one of the breed of church leaders who takes the church into a new land.