Earlier this fall we lost one of the great Christian writers of the past century, Frederick Buechner. Buechner was a Presbyterian minister who started out as a school chaplain and then became more of a writer than anything else. If you haven’t read him before, I urge you to pick up one of his books. Wishful Thinking is a good place to start, as it is a good, short introduction to both Buechner’s passion for the Bible and his great wit.
Although Buechner was an extraordinary writer and teacher of the faith, he honestly didn’t have much patience for church, as he was the first to admit.
“I don't go to church all that regularly,” he once told an interviewer, “and one reason I don't is very often when I go I am bored out of my wits. I find myself being addressed by preachers who, I assume, were led by some initial passion for Christ, for the truth, for God, for ‘the More’ we’re all seeking. That's what got them there. But apparently, what once got them there is now buried under all the debris of having to run a church and keep it going.”
I suspect we all feel this from time to time. The challenges of endless meetings, balancing budgets, fixing boilers, and yes, even putting up with boring sermons, can sometimes so dominate our experience of church that we forget what brought us here and is at the heart of it all – the living Christ.
This coming Sunday we are going to resume our Adult Forum hour by taking up the question “what is church?” I’ll lead the discussion with some preliminary thoughts, but my hope is that my presentation will lead us into a conversation about who we are, and who God is calling us to be, as “church.” This seems like an important and timely topic as we are reemerging from the pandemic, facing the continuing secularization of our culture, and embarking up the call of a new pastor. I hope you can join us.