Danville Enlightener

VOL. VIII, No. 27

July 22, 2007

All This Church Going...

Oh, what might have been? Growing up in south Louisville, I behaved like many of the boys in the neighborhood. I didn’t go to church; some of the kids did because they were forced to go. But when we all got together we echoed the same words: “All this church business is a bunch of _____.”

When I got older and became interested in the opposite sex, I sort of refined my apprehension about “church.” I would tell those girls who attended church that I didn’t need church to be a good guy. Somehow I guess I really believed what I was saying. Smugly, I would judge myself to be as good as many of these regular church goers.

About this time, many of my Catholic friends who were headed for Mass would stop by my house instead of going to church. We’d hang out, maybe drive up the Kocolene Station and get a Dr. Pepper. After all, we were young, and we knew it was only old people who went to church. For us, all this church business was a bunch of _____.

Depending upon who I was dating at the time I would occasionally attend Beth Haven Baptist, St. Clemens Catholic or some other denomination. I suppose you might say I had the rank attitude of Pharaoh, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice . . .? I do not know the LORD . . .” (Exod 5:2). Therefore I never gave any thought to dying, or to my soul; I only thought about the moment.

Also, like Pharaoh I ignored all the evidence around me that announced how temporary life was. While at the time I may never have read how life “is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (Jas 4:14), I was witnesses that truth however.

During a “Fall Festival” at school, a neighborhood boy, Reese Eubank, fell under a wagon during a hayride and was killed. Reese and his twin sister Patty lived just down the block, and when he died I briefly thought that “you know we all could die.” I didn’t dwell on it for too long, after all Reese’s death was a tragic accident and I am a lot more careful than that.

After the homecoming football game our junior class president, “Butch” Gardner and two friends were killed in a car wreck. Their car crossed the median on Dixie Highway in front of McDonalds and was hit head on by a semi. That year’s “Yearbook” was dedicated to these three boys and their deaths again awakened within me the vulnerability of human life, even the life of a teenager.

Vietnam! Several of the boys who graduated the year before me were sent off to Vietnam, some never to return alive. A memorial was erected in our neighborhood in tribute to the first soldier to die in Nam from our high school. We were able to see thousands of America’s boys be killed on TV as the news broadcasters gave us “blow by blow” accounts of the war.

While I had not really changed my view that “all that church business is a lot of nonsense” I was warming up to the idea that bad things do happen and even the young die. I began to grope, looking for some meaning for this life. Maybe, just maybe there is more to life than cruising on Fridays and Saturdays, and tasting the pleasures of sin (Heb 11:25).

While serving in the United States Army, I spent some time reading the New Testament that had been issued to me. Some of the guys I was with had been regular church goers and some even continued to go while in the military. I didn’t attend with them, but I did mellow my silly notion that church going was a waste. The First Sergeant in my Company, Doyle Smith, was a religious man who was not ashamed of his faith.

It wasn’t until after Sue and I married that I became convinced of my need for God. The births of my children simply reinforced this conviction. I often thank God that He was longsuffering with me (2 Pet 3:9), allowing me time to come to myself and surrender to Him.

Through the influences of dedicated Christians, I was able to crawl out of darkness. “So that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us,” (Acts 17:27).

On a warm summer day in 1972 I answered the call Ananias gave to Saul, “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” (Acts 22:16).

Our children and their spouses’ years later did the same and are all Christians, one granddaughter is a Christian and I have  great hope that the other ten grandchildrenwill eventually become servants of God. Oh, what might have been?

Let us never give up our optimism that an unbelieving loved one can make his or her way to the Lord. The gospel remains the power of God to save (Rom 1:16). And, that word can save even someone who thinks “All this church business is a bunch of _____.”

-- jrb

 

"As I See It"

“You discouraged the young people” a woman said in reference to a sermon I had preached for young people. This is not something I take lightly because I want to be a friend to the young and a source of encouragement.

Explaining what she meant, I began to wonder about the validity of her complaint. I had said in the course of a study of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15) that some young people do not have to go away from home to be in the “far country.” I said that some can be right at home and attending Bible classes and yet be “away from God.” I also said that on occasion you can pick up on this by their body language.

Then I used the illustration that often you can see some teens roll their eyes and shake their heads and twist in their seats when you say something with which they disagree. A preacher or teacher might mention the sinfulness of social drinking and one who engages in it might very well shift and roll his eyes indicating his disapproval of what was said.

I thought as I spoke to this woman, this is indeed strange because I have preached that same sermon all over the country and never had anyone say it discouraged youth. Hmm, what is different here?

I saw a news account of a Councilman in Cleveland, OH who was accused of making a death threat to an 18-year-old. I thought how strange is this? I dug deeper. It seems the Councilman had sent a letter to this 18-year-old telling him that if he didn’t stop living the life of a criminal that “There are only two places you will end up at the rate you are going — that is, prison or the nearest funeral home.”

This teenager was charged with aggravated assault in 2005 and spent three months in juvenile detention, and he was arrested last year in the alleged assault on an officer but the case was dismissed. He is out on bond on a drug trafficking charge. The boy’s mother said: “I think of it as a death threat to my son. It’s real simple.” How strange? Is she somehow justifying her son or perhaps her mothering?

The woman who approached me, I found out, had a son who left the Lord immediately upon going off to college a few years back. He had been one who deplored all this negativism from pulpits. AS I SEE IT, I never got to see his expression during sermons, but I can imagine what it was.