One of the things that amazed me after my shoulder surgery was how fast I lost muscle in my right arm. I would look in the mirror and think, “Good grief! I can’t believe how skinny that arm is compared to the other one!” As much as I enjoyed the medically-induced rest after my surgery, it came with a price. Inaction leads to loss of strength. In my case, it was prescribed and intentional, but the consequences were still the same. It really is true: move it or lose it. I didn’t move my shoulder and my arm for a while, and as a consequence I became significantly weaker.
I’ve been going through physical therapy, first to get back the range of motion, then to regain the strength that my arm had before. And it’s been a long and sometimes arduous process.
At first it didn’t hurt at all. The physical therapist would gently move my arm through a limited range of motion. All I had to do was lay there; the therapist did all the work.
But as the weeks passed I began to experience a fair amount of discomfort and pain. (Somebody told me that “P.T.” didn’t stand for “physical therapy”, it meant “Pain and Torture”.) As pleasant as the experience has been overall, I found myself dreading the session some days, because I knew that parts of it were going to hurt.
But I want to have the physical therapy. As I write this, I’m still going, twice a week. And I have to do exercises and stretches on my own at home on the other days. Some of those exercises hurt, too, but I do them anyway, because I want to regain the ability to move and use that shoulder. I endure all this because I want my body to be pain-free and have freedom of movement again. But let me tell you: once you lose strength and the ability to move, it is a long, uphill struggle to get them back.
After almost 9 weeks of physical therapy, we’re just now getting to the part where I use weights to build back some muscle. And do you know what the therapist started me on? 1 and 2 pound dumbbells. These are the kinds of weights I used to make fun of my wife for using, because I lifted much bigger weights. But not anymore, at least not with my right arm. It’s humiliating: after 10-12 repetitions with a 2 pound dumbbell, my arm is actually tired. (And one of the dumbbells is even pink. That just adds insult to injury.)
My point with all this is not to blather on about my physical therapy, but to make a parallel to the experience of a church. The Bible says that the Church is the Body of Christ. (Ephesians 1:22-23 – And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.)
This is true of all believers everywhere, in every age (what some call “the church universal”). But I believe it is true of each local church as well. Each local church is to be a microcosm of the church as a whole, acting as Christ’s hands and feet and voice to show His love to a lost world.
But here’s the thing: when we don’t do what the Lord Jesus told us to do, our church body gets weaker and more limited in its range of motion.
The Lord Jesus gave us what’s called “The Great Commission”: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The Lord Jesus gave us what’s called “The Great Commission”: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The Navigators have defined the Christian life in terms of 4 areas: Receiving the Word, Prayer, Fellowship and Evangelism (i.e., reaching out to others to tell them about Christ). Some years ago our church leadership did a weekend “retreat”. (We didn’t actually go anywhere; we held it on our church property.) One of the things we did was to write on a board all the things we do as a church, every activity we engage in. Then we asked ourselves, “Which category does this activity belong in: Receiving the Word, Prayer, Fellowship or Evangelism?” Do you know what we found? There were some things we did to receive the Word. There were a couple of things we did to engage in prayer. But the overwhelming number of the things we did as a church belonged under the category of “Fellowship”…and there was hardly anything we did that could legitimately be called “Evangelism”, or outreach to others. Things have changed somewhat since then, but I suspect if we did the same diagnostic exercise today, the results would be very similar.
When a church neglects outreach and evangelism and loses its heart for world missions, those “muscles” shrink and grow weaker and weaker. And it is possible for a church to regain its strength and movement in these vital areas, but not without a lot of work and effort, and even some pain and discomfort. Muscles that have shrunk don’t like to be moved. Churches that have grown complacent about outreach have difficulty moving in that direction again. Some never regain their strength and movement in this area. When that happens, it sounds the death knell for that church. It may take years, but a church that has become comfortable, complacent and self-focused is signing its own death warrant.
Can a church regain its strength and movement in the area of evangelism and outreach? Absolutely! But we have to be willing to go through the process of regaining that strength. It will be a lot of work. It will take us out of our comfort zones. And it may even hurt. It can be done…but only if we engage in the right kind of exercise.
In The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, there is a scene in which Theoden, king of Rohan, has just been freed from a long and sinister spell placed on him by his traitorous counsellor,, Grima Wormtongue. (Tolkien was a Christian; he was obviously drawing a parallel to Satan.) As he came out of his debilitating weakness of mind and body, the character Gandalf says to him: “Perhaps your arm would remember its strength if you held your old sword again.” And as Theoden takes his sword in hand once again, he finally comes to himself and remembers who he is and what he is there for.
If I may apply that to our church: there are a great many good and wonderful things that a church may do. But there is only one thing which only the church can do, and that it to tell others the wonderful Good News of Jesus Christ: how they can have their sins forgiven and go to be with the Father in Heaven when they die. Whatever else a church may do, we must not neglect to do this. It should be the motivation for everything that we do.
The Gospel is our sword: “…and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…” (Ephesians 6:17). And if we neglect to take hold of our sword and lift it high, our arm will never remember its strength.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David