The church where I attend is dying.
Neighboring farm families who settled in northwest Marion County founded North Liberty Christian Church in 1839. Their names are on the gravestones around our building.
The congregation has has its ups and downs in 170 years. We’ve built two log cabins, a brick church, and the current brick-faced cinder block building on the spot where those farmers first met, growing to at least 250 members. Yet in 1877 our doors closed for 11 years. And about ten years ago we suffered a destructive split, followed by several years of factions fighting for control. This nonsense has cost us dearly; our membership has dwindled to about 70. Our offering doesn’t cover expenses. Too many members are burned out and apathetic.
I’ve been at North Liberty for five years. God brought me here, I think, to get through and then heal from my divorce. But then he had service in mind for me, and has laid any number of things before me to do in this congregation. I’ve done everything I think God has asked me to do and many more things that I saw that needed to be done. I’m pretty involved. But deep in my heart I have been hoping God doesn’t ask me to step up any more.
I watch a small handful of people in our church who are involved in everything. It seems to me that they are desperately trying to keep the place together. They are exhausted, but they keep at it like soldiers on the front line who have been fighting continuously without a break. I don’t want to be one of those people. I have enough going on in my life outside the church, including a demanding job, taking care of a house and yard essentially alone, and trying to raise my children under circumstances that I wish were much better. I want to have time for my hobbies, such as my road trips and this blog, for the joy and restoration they bring. My life is full. Please God, don’t put any more on my plate.
During worship last Sunday, I was in the balcony at the sound board. The fellow who has done that for us the past few years has moved on with his family to another church. I was always his backup, and so now the job defaults to me. Nobody else can do it. I was not particularly happy to gain one more assignment, especially one that keeps my sons and I from worshiping with the rest of the congregation below.
I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that Sunday morning anyway and had just come from the Sunday school class I taught, one I thought I was prepared for but through which I stumbled as though I’d never seen the material before. So I was feeling good and grumbly up there in the balcony, where I didn’t want to be anyway. I was just going through the motions, and was paying only enough attention to punch the right buttons on cue. Then a song, one that we didn’t even sing that day, started playing in my head.
I’m trading my sorrows
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying them down
For the joy of the Lord
I’m trading my sickness
I’m trading my pain
I’m laying them down
For the joy of the Lord
Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord
Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord
Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord, Amen.
I’m pressed but not crushed
Persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I am blessed beyond the curse
For his promise will endure
That his joy is going
To be my strength
Though my sorrows may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning
The song was distracting and I wished it would go away. And then my mind got stuck on the chorus, all the yes, Lords. By the 30th or 40th chorus I was seriously considering humming “It’s a Small World” to myself to shake this song – and suddenly I became aware that answering God’s call was the theme of that day’s worship in both song and sermon, which I thought I had not been paying attention to. And I felt that God was making sure I heard it.
Okay, Father, so you reached me. You told me through the circumstances of my day and through the actions of my mind that you want me simply to say yes to all you ask. You suggested through it that what you ask will not be more than I can bear. I can do it, Father; I will do it. Whether I’m to see this congregation die or see its spirit rekindled, I know you want me there doing the work you’ve set aside for me. I know you know my situation, and I’m going to trust you to meet my needs.
