Why I Love the Church

So I love the church. There, I said it. Ha! I know it is almost the cardinal sin to speak of church in a favorable manor while being in seminary, but I don’t care. Call me a traitor. A regular Benedict Arnold of the theologically elite. But it is true. I love it. And here is why…

Thursday I got a call. It was one of those calls that I’ll never for the rest of my life forget. I was picking my baggage up in the Atlanta airport after an exhausting week-long mission trip to Ensenada, Mexico with Vaughn Park Church of Christ. As soon as I got my bag, my mother called. She called to tell me that my brother had been rushed to the ER in Nashville to have a spinal tap. They thought he had meningitus.

Needless to say, I was stopped. Horrified. Completely weak. I thought of him. I thought of how much I love him and how much I wanted to be there with him. If you have ever been away from someone you love when something big like that happens, you know how it can be. Horrible. Maybe one of the worst feelings humanity can face.

And what is worse, he was alone. All of his friends were home for the summer. He was just staying by himself in the dorm for a few weeks taking a summer course.

Rushed to the ER. Afraid of a terrible disease. And completely alone.

And what could I do? Nothing. I couldn’t even be with him. I have never felt so weak.

So I called Jon, one of my roommates from FHU who lives in Nashville. I called him and asked him to just be with my brother. To give him the infamous ministry of presence. I simply uttered the words “I need you,” and he was there a few minutes later. He said, “Matt, don’t worry. I am here.”

You know how there are people in your life about whom you say, “If I ever needed them, they’d be here in a second”? Well, he actually did it. He was there for my brother, my family, and me at the drop of a hat.

Within a few moments of his arrival at the hospital, my brother was no longer alone.

That is church.

I think that I saw Christ more in Jon that night than I did in myself on the mission trip I’d just been on. No, I know I did. Jon gave my brother something that cannot really be described, much less haphazardly given—community. Community in the name of Jesus. As part of his body, the church, we have a responsibility to one another. To love one another. To bless one another. To be Christ to one another. And although Jon was just there with my brother, he was there with him. And that is Christ in him.

Christ lives after all in his church.

So Thursday my family saw Christianity. We didn’t just read about it. We didn’t just meditate on it. We saw it. We felt it. We were sustained by it.

Luckily, the results came back negative. My brother does not have meningitus. Soli Deo Gloria. Just a really bad infection. So I saw God in more ways than I can count that day. But mostly through Jon. And that because of church.

We, in the church, truly are the most blessed of all people. May we never forget that.

This is my prayer tonight.

God, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his body, the church. For through it he is alive and well.

In spite of us—our weaknesses and failures—we have him alive in us.

Thank you. For this we worship you.

You are beautiful. You are worthy of praise. You are compassion. You are love. You are holy. You sustain the weak. Heal the sick. You are the one I saw yesterday. And today. And will tomorrow.