A Call Back to Church

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore
ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. —Luke 10:2

The first church I ever pastored was Matfield Green Community Church located in the Flint Hills of Kansas. I preached my first sermon at the age of nineteen. Because I didn’t know what to say on that first Sunday, I read the sermon out of a book. The book was a collection of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s sermons one of the premier preachers of the twentieth century (at least I had good taste). I used outlines from my father’s sermons to make it through that first year.

I returned to that little white frame church building in which, on a good Sunday, forty souls came together to honor God, for the first time since I had left it. It was amazing. The building looked exactly the same from its front doors to the sign out front. The doors happened to be unlocked, so I went in. Nothing had changed save a carpet which had been installed in the aisle and on the platform and padded pews. I looked at the attendance chart on the wall and the previous Sunday’s attendance was twelve. The congregation was now on life support.

Every day in America eight churches close their doors. We are not starting new congregations at a rate that is fast enough to replace them. The sad fact is that whenever a church closes its doors or people drop out of a church and become inactive, the vast majority go no where to church. They just stop attending.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this—too strong attachment to the church building, loss of interest in what the church is about, etc. I know this much, we cannot stand by and pretend that most people are going somewhere to worship on the weekend when they are no longer attending here—most are attending no church.

I know the church growth experts say we ought to focus our energies on the un-churched and not the inactive. Frankly the inactive are the un-churched upon whom we are asked to focus our energies. Perhaps you know someone who is attending no church, or perhaps once attended here. I hope you take the words of Jesus and become one of the harvesters who seek to bring them back.

Prayer
Gracious God I am a recipient of your grace and have committed myself to journey with this faith community. Grant me the wisdom and courage to reach out to others who journey alone, lest in keeping this faith community to myself it loses its witness and withers. Amen.

Mac Hamon, Senior Pastor
Castleton United Methodist Church
Indianapolis, Indiana