By John W. Fountain
What if? What if, instead
of going to church this Sunday, the church decided to “be” the church? What if,
instead of pouring through the doors of sanctuaries across this city and nation
to worship at cathedrals grand and small, congregants collectively flooded the
streets of neighborhoods where there is no sanctuary for the poor, the widow
and the orphan?
What if, rather
than dropping tithes and offerings into the collection plate this Sunday, each
family sought instead to find another family less fortunate, perhaps down on
their luck, living in a shelter, a car, or out on the street?
Or maybe there is
a senior citizen who must choose between buying medication or food. Or someone else
for whom a more mobile and less self-serving church might become the vehicle
for little miracles. Comfort for a grieving mother. A salve for a sick and
dying child.
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"...What if one Sunday we veered from the routine,
religion and ritual of church? "
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What if we—the
church—stopped focusing on whether someone regularly attends church or not as
the test of their true sanctity, and instead began to see random acts of love
and kindness to others as a truer measure of a believer’s commitment?
What if we began simply
to speak openly, kindly, to those we often walk by silently as they lay in
life’s gutter? What if we chose to begin to “see” those we render as invisible—the
poor, the indigent, those treated as modern-day lepers—whether it is due to their
race, class, or sexual orientation?
What if “the
church” just ditched going to church one glorious Sunday morning, abandoned the
pomp and circumstance, our religiosity and ceremony, and simply rolled up our collective
sleeves? Donned work clothes instead of our Sunday’s best, and assembled in the
street, seeking to do some earthly good?
What if, instead
of “having church,” the church came out from behind its walls, and spilled into
hospitals and nursing homes, orphanages, prisons and jails, repairing houses, mending
communities, hearts, fences? What if the church were to realize that you need
not travel to some faraway Third-World country in order to make change—only
take a walk or a short drive?
What if the church
abandoned its posh pulpits and cushy pews and sought to engage those who feel
alienated from the corporatized institutions it has now become? What if?
A few years ago, I
suggested to a wise old pastor my idea of writing to urge people to hit the
streets rather than going to church one Sunday and use the money they would
normally have given to try and make some difference.
“Most churches
couldn’t afford to do it,” he answered with a chuckle. “They’d have to shut
down.”
Maybe they can’t
afford to. Or maybe they—we—can’t afford not to.
Especially in a
world where politicians, police and government programs so clearly fail to mend
hearts and minds, heal communities, or transform lives. A world where, in my
eyes, a man’s so-called religion pales in comparison to his personal relationship
with his Creator and his fellow man, and where there is no greater act of
worship than one’s selfless sacrifice for the good of others.
It is a world where
the church is too often missing in action and failing to fulfill its mission. Some
churches do. But sadly, so many don’t.
So what if one
Sunday we veered from the routine, religion and ritual of church? And what if it
helped sparked a revolution—a wind of revival that brings life to the dry, dead
bones that in my mind sometimes seems to best characterize today's church?
What if the
church suddenly veered from its path of materialism, separatism and elitism
that led Dr. Martin Luther King many years ago to prophesy that it was in
danger of becoming an “irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual
authority”?
What if we—the
church—began our own transformation bright and early one radical Sunday
morning?
What if we don't?
Email: Author@Johnwfountain.com
Website: www.johnwfountain.com
