WANDERING SAINTS
One of the great surprises of being out in the secular working world has been finding so many people who have left the Church. Oh to be sure, there are a fair number of folks who have wandered from God as a result of sin. That was as common to Jesus’ experience as it is to ours. What troubles me lately, however, is just how many people I have met who describe themselves as deeply committed Christians, active followers of Jesus, who have little desire to have anything to do with a congregation. I include in this list quite a large number of pastor colleagues and friends who are quite despairing about belonging to congregations.
In hearing these litanies of complaint, I have to lay a large part of the cause at the feet of congregations. It has often been said, usually tongue-in-cheek, that “the Church is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded!” That saying no longer makes me even smile; I find too much truth in it. Congregations, I have come to believe, need a very healthy dose, of II Chronicles 7:14 – a humbling, deeply introspective confession of the myriad of ways that we have forgotten our fellow believers, not listened to their pain, not chased after them in Christ’s love and cared for them. We are guilty of too quickly shrugging off their pain with pious phrases. We have failed to enter into their suffering with them. We have dismissed their complaints against the congregation and not tried to amend our collective sinful ways.
What is needed is the healing ministry style of Jesus Christ. This is one essential area where the congregation needs to engage the world – first by seeking the countless saints who have quietly left our ranks. Listening, loving, caring, befriending does not mean we water down truth. It does mean we humbly confess our faults and roll up our sleeves to change our attitudes and behavior.
The best story of pastoral care I ever heard was a story one of my professors told at seminary. When a certain wise pastor heard that one of his fellow believers was in pain, he just showed up at the door. Rather than try to soothe the pain with empty words and teaching, the gifted pastor simply stood on the doorstep and said, “I have come to cry with you,” and said nothing more.
Could we, every single one of us, baptized believers alike, go out and find our wandering brothers and sisters and simply cry with them? Could we go and say little, if anything, and just sit and listen to their stories of how congregations have hurt them and failed them? Could we each be Christ to these folks and gently be the Church for them?
Perhaps, if we made an effort like this, there would be a lot less wandering saints and our pews would be a lot less empty!
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