Tenderhearted is the God that watches this.
A young girl slips out from the Sabbath school rooms, her eyes shadowed with hidden fears. A moment later, after furtively glancing left and right, the teacher follows. As the child presses in close beside her parents and the congregation stands to sing, the teacher sends a look meant only for her. "It is our secret," it says.
Angry/weeping . . .
He hovers about the foyer at the beginning of Sabbath school. A little shy, hesitant. Someone strikes up a conversation with him, but they find him awkward, a bit boring. So he sits, alone. Three months go by. Now he is coming to Sabbath school late, but still sitting alone. One year later he no longer attends Sabbath school; he comes only to church. Two years pass, and over lunch the question is heard, "Where is that guy, you know, the one that used to sit over there by himself? Oh, what was his name?"
. . . and oh, so wounded, is the God who knows of these.
Each of the five scenarios is true; each as awesome for their own reason as the other. Church involvement can give us great joy and terrible pain. Unfortunately, church is as sweet and sour as humanity can be. If church were only about us, and how it makes us feel, then we would be fickle connoisseurs of congregations.
However, church is not about us. It is about Him. Church is about worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Church is our journey with God, lived out in community.
What does that mean? It may mean that God intends us to serve, rather than be served.
Is your church a difficult one for you to live in? Are you church-shopping? There is a cliché that suits this predicament well: "Bloom where you are planted." Live to discover God's purpose and leading, rather than your own. Allow God to use you and enjoy the possibility of being an avenue of grace to another person. Take to heart the words of God as he says, "I have drawn you with loving-kindness" (Jer. 31:3, NIV) and revel in the knowledge that God may be using you as one of those cords.
Extraordinary Love
God has shown me extraordinary love through the support and kindness of people in church. And my experience is not rare. I close my eyes and think of church-my home-and I can see the check sent to me by "someone" from church to pay my airfare for my year's volunteer work in Thailand. My church family was at my father's funeral, my twenty-first birthday, and even in the emergency waiting room while Mom was treated. Youth meetings and Bible discussions and presenting programs and weeding people's gardens and singing in old folks' homes, and hiking through the snow for our Silver awards. That church is the home where I laugh and cry the freest. They have taught me what church can be.
Was it perfect? No. I seem to remember discussions about drums, overheads, and issues too major to leave the boardroom-but love was always determined to tough issues out, to wait, and to forgive and laugh together again. Even when there were disagreements in doctrine, love for each other was greater.
Nothing displays the functioning power of God more than the way church members deal with each other. And He is more aware than we of the ridiculous and serious problems that can take place. If we have an issue with another in church, for whatever reason, God has told us to deal with it immediately. In the community of church God's love for us determines that we are committed to heal and grow together in grace. So speak to the person concerned. If they don't listen, take the pastor and try again. The aim is not to assuage your feelings but to move on. Many churches have been split through plastering Silly Putty over arguments until years later doctrine, rather than unloving attitudes, is cited as the cause for the "divorce."
If you are so hurt you are unsure of the attitude I am speaking of, just look at what Joseph said to his brothers regarding their savage treatment of him: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children" (Gen. 50:20, 21, NIV).
Which may read: You did hurt me, and you intended to, but I trust that God is directing my life and is greater than this problem. His ultimate purpose will prevail; my healing is not the major issue here. How can I serve you?
When the Hurt Is Deep
There are some problems that cannot be healed with a handshake. What can one say about the young girl in Sabbath school? The man in question is in jail, and although her immediate church did not support her, church members across Australia did. Does she attend church anymore? Not to my knowledge. Is God's purpose for her thwarted? No. I have seen Adventists nationwide respond to God's prompting and reach out to her without being told of her need. It has been the most amazing miracle, a cord of church members woven by God to draw her to Him.
And the young man who never returned? I cannot say whether he gave up on God or church or Adventism. I would like to believe that later he found a church of service whose members cared for Him rather than for themselves.
What is church to you? What does your church say of God? Do you reflect His kind, tender, and compassionate heart? For you are the church, and I believe He offers you Joseph's challenge to live beyond your constraints to His purpose.
I was sitting in the back room of the church, looking out the window, waiting for the elders to have prayer before I took the service, and they were a little late.
Suddenly the door clicked open. The elders, smiling, said that a young man, a stranger to their congregation, had brought his 4-year-old son to be dedicated. As the two were soon to be separated (the father was going to jail), he wanted his boy dedicated in the Adventist Church. So the order of service was changed.
The organ music was playing, we were sitting on the rostrum, and I was watching the father. He was standing at the back of the church, proud and tall, eyes tender, watching his son. His blond-headed boy was dressed impeccably in a little suit that made him look at least 6.
Transfixed, I wondered at their story. And now I think I understand.
Somewhere, once, at least for the father, church was home. It had to have been a place of grace for him to return at this stage in his life. His eyes on that day said he wanted the best for his son . . . he wanted his boy to be touched by God, and so he brought him to church.
What trust he had, to think the members of the congregation were there not to care for their own needs, but to serve, with love and grace, the God they chose to glorify.
So revel in the privilege of honoring that father's trust, knowing that all the while every person sitting in your church is also brought there by a Father.
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Karen Muirhead lives in Dubbo, New South Wales, where she is a full-time mother and freelance writer.
ER SCOTTISH BROGUE AND THAT deep laugh are what I remember most. She was being fitted for a woolen coat on a warm Melbourne autumn afternoon in the home of a church member who was a seamstress. Widowed and without family in Australia, this Scotswoman was being "shouted" a trip home by the people from church. While away they would be around her through the gift of the coat.
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