Feb
24
Written by:
Rev. Ed Boon
2/24/2010 9:05 PM
We learn lessons in many different ways and in many different places, but one of the biggest lessons I've learned recently, I learned while conversing with someone in the church hallway.
LESSONS LEARNED IN A CHURCH HALLWAY
We learn lessons in many different ways and the Lord touches us by many different means. I think the recent concert with the Campbells is a case in point. The message they brought to us through their music informed, encouraged and challenged. I personally was particularly touched as Leo Campbell’s daughter Cindy sang of the healing she had received from the Lord. The song was especially touching if you know that she had once lost her voice and been told that she would never sing again.
There were also those in attendance who were touched by the message of salvation and there were a few adults who raised their hands to receive the Lord. There is no other musical group that we have had come here that makes as strong a presentation of the gospel as do the Campbells.
While the concert was excellent and met many needs, I think the Lord spoke to me most particularly through a conversation I had in the hallway before the service with one of the team members.
I was talking with one of the men on the Campbells team and he was commenting very favorably about our church. It started with his complementary remarks about the restroom of all things. He mentioned how in their travels up and down the east coast, and especially in New England he has been troubled by the churches he sees dying. Was that because of the restrooms? That was not exactly his point, but he felt that all too often churches are so concerned about being good stewards of the Lord’s money that they have become cheap stewards. They not only do not spend money, they also do not give as they should and as he said, it shows first of all in the building and very often in the quality of the restrooms. If you remember the history of Israel, when they were close to God that attitude was reflected in their care for the temple and when they were away from God the temple fell into disrepair. In effect, as he pointed out, this may be of little importance if the only people you attract to your church are the faithful few. It does make a difference when visitors come in. Unfortunately, it was his observation that more and more churches were reaching only the faithful few and those faithful few were declining in numbers.
Why is that? To quote Proverbs 29:18 from the King James Version, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The church, all too often has lost its vision, and far too often it could be described with the use of the rather unflattering word: ‘cheap.’
An Alliance evangelist who ministers across the country shared with me recently how he had traveled to a large church in New Jersey where he ministered the entire week and the pastor refused to even take a love offering for him. He simply placed a small can on the table in the back and hardly mentioned it. That not only is cheap, it’s dishonest and dishonoring to the Lord. Not only did the Lord emphasize in Luke 10:7 that a workman is worthy of his hire, but Jeremiah was even stronger in Jeremiah 22:13 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by ungrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong: that useth his neighbor’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work.”
A Christian from the area who does not attend this church told me one time that the reason the Lord continues to bless The Bridgton Alliance Church despite all that it has gone through over the years, is that it is a generous church. I praise God for that testimony and I think the message that the Lord was giving me as I stood in the hallway talking with our visiting brother is that we need to maintain our vision. We need to be good stewards and not cheap stewards. We need to keep our eyes off ourselves. We need to keep them on the Lord and we need to see and care about the needs of those around us, doing everything possible to move forward with the work that has been committed to us here. By God’s grace we will.