CHURCH CRASH

There was accident at our church.

It was early on a Sunday morning.  Sarah and I were the first to arrive, standing around talking in the church’s fellowship hall.  All was peaceful; anticipation was high for the service that day.  We had no idea that something so violent, so grizzly, something so sermon-illustrationally golden was about to happen outside.  

“BANG!”  It was so loud.  Not “shake the foundation,” loud.  More like “tap on the wall” loud.  It was a thunderous, bone chilling tap!  I peeked out the side door and looked around to see if we were under attack.  No one was around.  We walked to the side of the building where we heard that violent tap and witnessed something so sad.  A bird, faced down, little birdy feet up into one of our bushes.  It didn’t take much to figure out what happened:  The bird smacked into the side of the church and nose-dived into the green with, I’m guessing, a bad migraine.

Where was this bird going?  What were his plans?  Was it just a normal Sunday fly?  Was he out visiting family?  Wherever he thought he was going, his trip took an unexpected stop—crashed into church. 

People have been crashing into churches for years.  Church has a way of stopping us dead in our tracks.  How many times are we going our way, minding our own business, doing our own thing  and hear a Word that interferes with our direction, it impedes our rebellion and changes our course?  Like a wall jumping out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit’s conviction is warning us to head in life-giving direction instead of a life-draining one.  We like church to make us feel good about ourselves.  But when church is working right, it’s interfering with our wrong direction and pointing us to where life can be found.  And isn’t that what we all want?  Don’t we want our lives, marriages, children and communities to be filled with life?

The wisdom of Proverbs tells us:  12 There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death…15 The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps. 16 The wise fear the Lord and shun evil, but a fool is hotheaded and yet feels secure. Proverbs 14:12, 15-16

Don’t fear the church crash.  It’s course correcting.



By the way, the bird was fine.