 The "Go-To" Church Every year when the NBA playoffs come around we start to see twice as much coverage and some of the buzzwords get overused. One of the phrases commonly used to describe the team star is, the "go-to guy." By this is meant that he is the one you want to get the ball to when the game is on the line. With all of the coverage of the terrible shootings at Virginia Tech, I was reminded of so many other times when small communities have been traumatized in America. Columbine, Thurston, Oklahoma City, the West Virginia mining disaster--the list goes on and on. What struck me during the non-stop coverage of all these events was the fact that it is often, if not always, a Church that becomes the hub, the center for responding to such horrible events. This being the case, I have been wondering about what things a Church can do to be able to help in such terrible times. And so we come to the title of this morning’s message. I’ve entitled it: "The Go-To Church." It is ironic that people use the expression, "I go to that church." It is a harmless enough expression that simply means, "that is the congregation with whom I worship on Sunday." There is a message in that phrase, however, that is descriptive of a problem. If you go "to" a Church, then you go "from" it when the service is over. The Church, as the Bible describes it, is not a building or a site or even a hierarchy. It is literally the "Called Out Ones." Isn’t it interesting that when a disaster strikes, often the Governor will "Call Out" the National Guard? It is no different with the Church. So this morning I want to talk about what it means not merely to go to church, but rather what it means to become the GO-TO CHURCH. Sadly it is not a matter of "if" a traumatic event will strike here, it is rather "when." Maybe more to the point is the question, "What?" What will we do and how will we do it? Pastor Jim |
