Tear Up the Obit

Back in the day when I went to seminary, there were people who were saying that God was dead.  I went to theological school and got my degree anyway.  Today there are people looking around and saying that the church is dead.  If not dead, it is dying, on its deathbed.  There are some signs of its demise.  One sign is the lack of people who enter its doors.  Even though some churches may be full and need law enforcement officers to get folks in and out of the traffic, the percentage of the total population outside the walls is much greater than those inside. Secondly, never, or so it seems, has there been such denominational turmoil present within the organized structure of the church.    

I never really got out my sack cloth and ashes when I heard that God was dead and neither have I done so recently upon reading what I regard as premature obituaries of the church.  What is often forgotten by some of the current naysayers is that the church is more than an institution, it is a community.  To go a step farther is to say the church is not just a community, but a spiritual community.  It is as invisible as the Kingdom of God itself.  We see expressions of the Kingdom of God in our world, but we see nothing physical to limit, or confine it.  It is constantly expressing itself in the hearts of people who love God as well as through the actions of the Holy Spirit.  

Such is also true of the spiritual community.  It cannot die because it is of God. It may flow out of sight, underground like some rivers, exist out on the fringes of religious life, but as long as the Spirit moves among us, the church's survival is guaranteed.  It may be experienced in a different way, but make no mistake, as surely as God survived a death threat back in my seminary days, so will the church survive one in these days of my retirement.