Safety

Why do we attend church?  Why do we participate in the community of faith?  Why do we spend our time, energy, and resources on these things?

Because the church is the avenue through which we come to, grow in, and live in faith.  It meets needs for us.

Do you remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that you learned about in your basic sociology or psychology class?  The most basic immediate needs are physiological, like breathing and eating.  Once those have been met, our next most urgent needs are for safety, then love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

As a minister, I've learned that the that the best way to introduce someone to Christ is to show them that he will meet these needs.  Christ fed the 5,000 because he was meeting their most basic needs.  (Jesus does show us that there is an even greater basic need, forgiveness of sin, which he grants a paralytic before he grants him physical healing.  See Matthew 9.)

Let's focus for just a moment on that second tier of needs: safety.  Safety is a need that every living creature holds in common.  Back a dog into a corner and make it feel like it's safety is threatened and expect to be mauled.  Endanger the safety of my wife and watch a beautiful, kind, loving woman turn into a raging, unrelenting, commando.

Hopefully, if you're a Christian, you've discovered that in your faith you can find safety - the kind that is supernatural and goes beyond the temporal.  Jesus is the calmer of the waves and the master of the storm (see Matthew 8).  No matter what life throws our way, we know that God has already conquered the world and we already know the end of the story. 

Unfortunately, for many church-goers, that sense of security comes from church affiliation.  Long-time church members are typically the most guilty and when change comes to the local church, they begin to act like cornered animals.  Conflict erupts, often devoid of reason and going off like a shotgun blast that hits many people at once rather than a sniper rifle hitting the intended target. 

When I arrived at Mt. Bethel three years ago, a long-standing tradition had been on life support for a number of years.  Every fall, an auction was held to raise money for the church and a series of sermons were preached by a guest preacher.  Attendance had dwindled to very few people and the fundraising "festival" ended up costing more than it was making.  Newer members didn't participate or understand why this tradition even existed.  In the days when every member farmed, this event made sense and people from the community would file through the doors to be a part of it.

I took the harvest festival off of life support.  We tried it my first fall here, but immediately afterward, I began making plans to replace it with something that would better serve and reach the community. 

Have you ever poked a hornet's nest? 

I got angry emails and phone calls.  Members refused to shake my hand on Sunday morning.  Thankfully we've gotten past that and even more gratefully, my instincts proved to be right.  We now redirect our energies in the fall to serving the families that have moved to the community and we've increased our involvement in the schools around us.

People were upset with me because I threatened their security by changing tradition that was older than me.  The face of the church changed, ever-so-slightly, and the waves of conflict began to kick up.

In Unbinding the Gospel, Martha Reese says toward the end, "If you only get one thing from this chapter, make sure it's this: safety lies in God, not in our habits."  I love that.  You see, when we are faithful to God and pursue the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives and our churches, the scenery will change.  When Jesus commissioned his disciples, he didn't say, "Build a building here in Jerusalem, send out glossy 5x8 postcards to all the world and wait for them to come to you."  God has, throughout history, been moving his people from place to place.  He has lead us to places we never knew existed and connected us with people we probably wouldn't choose on our own.

Write this down in the front of your Bible, hang it on your fridge, tattoo it on your...wherever:  GOD IS ALWAYS IN THE NEW PLACE.

That's the Gospel.  God never forsakes his own people but always goes ahead of us.  In fact, we may discover that if we refuse to move, God will move on without us.  Where are we then?

Where does your stability/safety/security come from?  If it comes from God, then nothing can ever threaten it (or you).