Not a Good Year
Theme for the Week: Worshiping Together
Monday, July 9, 2001
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God (Psalm 92:13). Bonus Reading: Matthew 18:15-19
Forty years ago a Philadelphia congregation watched as three nine-year-old boys were baptized and joined the church. Not long after, unable to continue with its dwindling membership, the church sold the building and disbanded.
One of those boys was Tony Campolo, now sociologist at Eastern College. "Years later, while doing research in the archives of our denomination," Tony said, "I decided to look up the church report for the year of my baptism. There was my name, and Dick White's. He's now a missionary. Bert Newman, now a professor of theology at an African seminary, was also there. 'It has not been a good year for our church,' the report read. 'We have lost 27 members. Three joined and they were only children.'"
I too went to a struggling church. It gave me a diploma with a space for six seals, one for each year of perfect Sunday school attendance.
I have only five. The church disbanded before I could get my sixth. This award, hanging behind my desk, affirms the teachers who lit in me a lifelong fire, and says more about who I am today than any adult diplomas or awards I could display.
Marlene LeFever in Teacher Touch
Respond:
Recall and thank God for someone who "lit your fire."
Thought to Apply:
The strength of a church is not revealed by how many it seats, but by how many it sends.
W. Stanley Mooneyham (relief agency administrator, 20th century)
Adapted from: Teacher Touch (Cook, 11/00)
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity. 1 of 1
Lord, we thank Thee that we can come to Thee just as we are. But remind us that we dare not leave as we came.
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