Excerpt from Psalm 102:12-28 

"Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord."
 
Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Sooner or later, every churchy person gets sick of the church.  They get burned out and wonder whether this is all worth it.  If you ask, you will find out that the problem is not with God or faith, but with the church as an institution.  It's not God that wore them out, it's being asked to serve on another committee.  It's not following the Gospel that did it, it's being the only one that ever mows the lawn.  It's too many events, too much email, too many evening meetings.

Many find themselves longing for New Testament times, back when we were a movement instead of an institution.  One guy said to me that he would much prefer to have lived under Roman persecution, because dying in the arena for your faith felt meaningful—unlike the church meeting he had that night.

Institutions are a pain.  They take lots of work and lots of maintenance.  They can suck the life out of you, fast.

Movements are more fun.  They are exciting, engaging, enlivening.  They also tend not to last.

The reason you know anything about the faith is that once upon a time, somebody in the Jesus movement realized they needed to set up a system to pass the faith on to the future.  They poured themselves into the resulting institution.  They did it not for their own gratification, but so that YOU would find out the truths they lived by.  They measured "what was worth it" not only by their own sense of fulfillment, but by their hopes for you.

I'm not saying every committee meeting the church has ever held mattered; most of them didn't.  I'm saying that all institutions are annoying, AND that the church is the one that brought your faith to you.  So when you're feeling ground down by yours, right after you refuse to chair another task force, but before you decide to quit forever, just remember this: the work you're doing is at least as much for your grandkids as it is for you.
 
Prayer

God, save us from committee meetings.  And even when I can't see it, grant that the work I do today might introduce you to future generations tomorrow.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell, a United Church of Christ minister, is the co-author, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ, published by The Pilgrim Press.

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