Does Our Church Even Matter?
If you didn’t notice, we’re a small church. Compared nationally, throughout our 180 years of existence we’ve always been a small church. Go to Texas and you’ll find youth groups that are bigger than our church. Closer to home, you can find congregations in Rhode Island with so many people they are talking about building additions or opening new church locations. Full worship bands, multiple pastors and administrators, a myriad of programs – so many more things than us.
Do we even matter?
In my low moments, I must admit I’ve wondered this. Theoretically, I think it’s better for there to be many small churches than a few mega-churches. I’m sure you can think of some good reasons for this preference: closer relationships, stronger personal involvement, greater pastoral attentiveness. Those considerations aside, I still imagine that like me you may have wondered about the real significance of our church.
Practically, it’d seem more productive if all the small churches in Rhode Island just got absorbed into four central locations across the state. By a certain measure, this is true. If that occurred, those four locations would really be bustling. They could be very vibrant churches. If our measure was the precincts in which those churches gathered, the Gospel might very well saturate the depths of that community. It would be fantastic.
Now consider this: how would all the communities outside those four locations measure up?
If all the Christians in Scituate went to church in Johnston, should we imagine the Gospel would saturate our town? Perhaps you feel we haven’t made much of dent, despite the presence of at least several evangelical churches in town. Perhaps that’s true, but now imagine the complete absence of our churches. What then would be the state of the Gospel in Scituate? How then would the people of Scituate be reached?
Poor workmanship does not lead us to conclude the workman is unneeded, any more than the work of a lousy cabinetmaker indicates you don’t need cabinets. No doubt we should improve, and we should always seek to grow healthier as a church, but never should we think that Rockland Community Church doesn’t matter. Jesus Christ has called his followers the light of the world. In a world encompassed in darkness, we are the light in Scituate. Not that we are alone in this town, but that even within our town we have been uniquely, even geographically, positioned to reach certain people, just as those faithful sister churches of ours have themselves been uniquely positioned. Together, we matter for Scituate.
This isn’t all that could be said about why we matter. Intrinsically, we matter because we are members of Christ’s Body and bring worship and glory to God in our life together – that will always matter, whether there be 10 or 1,000 of us. I’m also confident and glad to know that our church might matter to you for all kinds of personal reasons. I write the above because of our human tendency to compare ourselves to others. The fruitfulness of churches in other places does not lower our esteem in God’s eyes at all. Their work is their work, our work is our work, and in truth all the work belongs to God. If God has called you to another field, go by all means! If he has given you the field of Scituate, keep your hand to the plow.
Rev. Tom Loghry
Tom Loghry is the senior pastor of Rockland Community Church in North, Scituate, RI. He is a graduate of the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies, Toccoa Falls College (B.S. Pastoral Ministry), and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.A. Theology). He is continuing his graduate studies in the area of “Ethics & Society” at GCTS.
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.