At the church we attended yesterday, the sermon text was from the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Mark and, once again, I found myself thinking about Christ’s words as they might apply to the organized church as well as to individual Christians.
To paraphrase,
… He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If any church wants to come after Me, it must deny itself, take up its cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it benefit a church to gain the whole world, and forfeit its soul? For what could a church give in exchange for its soul?”
The pastor spent some time on what “denial” means in this context, i.e., what it means for us to deny ourselves. But what church denies itself?
In my experience, a church only denies itself if it’s not bringing in enough offerings to cover whatever it wants to do or buy– and even then, I’ve seen churches go into debt (often couched as “stepping out in faith”) to finance projects that were more wants than needs, and that served themselves more than others. I do not recall being a member of or associated with a church that systematically denied itself in order to bless or benefit others more consistently or more thoroughly.
Do you know of one? This example came to my attention recently: a church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that over the years has bought and forgiven millions of dollars’ worth of medical debt. Have you heard of any others?
(Image: “Matthew 16:24,” by GuardtheDoors, on DeviantArt under Creative Commons.)
And what might it mean for a church to deny itself and take up its own cross? What church is prepared to follow its Savior to Calvary, to sacrifice itself — its riches, its reputation, even its very existence — for the sake of the gospel?
Too many churches — and even one is too many — seem instead to sacrifice the gospel for the sake of worldly standing, influence, and power. Those churches build monuments to themselves more than temples to a holy God: sheepfolds in which to shelter more and more converts that join their flocks, rather than training grounds to develop more and better disciples to send out in service. They focus their attention so much on those inside the church that the wider world becomes blurry in their vision, sometimes to the point that the world outside the church may as well not even exist — or, if they do cast a quick glance at and reach out to the world outside the walls, their efforts are perfunctory and only a pale imitation of their Lord.
Whether corporate churches or individuals, may God forgive us for all the good we could have done for others if we were not so focused on doing good for ourselves.
___
If you’re interested in more thoughts along these lines, I’d be honored if you took a look at my book, A Church More Like Christ.
by 
