Friday, 26 June 2009

• Neglectful of the church.

  I was at an account yesterday, an office building which stands out from all my others.  There is a strange imbalance in that the building itself is kept cleaner than any other I've been to.  The bathroom floors are void of any tissue-paper litter; sinks and countertops are wiped perfectly dry; soap dispensers filled are to the brim; mirrored-elevators and glass doors never have fingerprints or smudges; granite floors kept polished to reflection and carpets which never have a piece of lint on them...

  I've noticed in buildings like this that the occupants are more aware of their own human-propensity to make messes.  You'll see them wipe their feet in bad weather or do some other behaviour that shows they notice and care.

  But not the account from yesterday.  Though the staff keeps their building cleaner than any other I've seen, their renters behave as though they are a bunch of cocky high-school boys.  I'll see rubber bands resting on the 6-inch ledge across from the upper-floor elevator lobbies.  Or candy wrappers, gum, and deli-paper stuffed into the plants.  Coffee spills on the stairways and so on. 

  I was cleaning the dust from a ficus leaf and couldn't help but compare this to many churches.  Too many pastoral staffs...underpaid staffs at that...do all the work in the church while the congregants are nothing but well-dressed mooches.  What is the commonly-held statistic, 80-20?  That 80% of the work in a church is done by 20% of the people?  I'd think it'd be less than 20%

  I'm definitely not in that less-than-20%.  I am one of the well-dressed pew-warmers who often has something to say about how the church should be run, and though well-meaning, I don't see any way that my abilities can actually help.  I keep waiting for something big to happen before I commit or offer my seemingly ill-fitting skills, but I know that isn't how church is supposed to be.  As a member of the greater Church, we need and are called to be active in the never-lesser church.

  The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. ... the body is not made up of one part but of many.  If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 
  And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 
  But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
   The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 1 Corinthians 12:12, 14-21, NIV 

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