On the fifth of June, 1940, not even a month after he became prime minister, Winston Churchill spoke to the British people to encourage them of their desperate situation.
Bear in mind that in September of the previous year the Nazis had invaded Poland, with no effective resistance. Thereafter, with swift and sudden violence Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, all had fallen prey to Nazi imperialism. And now, just a few days earlier, France had also collapsed, with thousands of British soldiers having to be evacuated from Dunkirk. It must have seemed that nothing stood in the way of the destruction of all of Europe. Truly a desperate
plight.
Mr. Churchill’s strong speech, however, helped keep the British people in fighting trim, for he knew that defeat comes not simply because the enemy is stronger. He knew that defeat comes because people think they can be defeated; defeat comes when you believe that you can be defeated. So his speech to the British public:
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival ... we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Churchill’s mighty words are so very much like the defiant confidence of Paul in today’s text: "We will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up." "We shall never surrender" "If we do not give up" These two men are saying something to us about the power of persistence. They are speaking about the value of staying with something over the long haul.
But contrast, if you will, the rock-solid confidence of a Churchill, who had every human reason to think that his cause was lost ... contrast his rock-solid confidence with the pessimism and defeatism that characterizes some Christians. With nothing like the threat of annihilation facing us; with nothing nearly as destructive attacking us, still too many of us, modern Christians, have given up the ship and have decided it’s all over for the church.
The layman who said to me about his congregation, "We can’t grow because nobody lives around here any more." By which he meant nobody white, middle-class, and Baptist lives around here any more. Defeated.
The minister who sighed and said to me when he learned I was coming here as pastor, "I’d like to go back into the pastorate myself, but people aren’t falling all over themselves to come to church anymore." As if they ever really did. Defeated, again, before the battle was even joined.
The church which worshipped every Sunday behind locked doors and required that you first be recognized before you could enter, for fear that someone of the wrong kind might get in ... when dealing with the wrong kind is the very province of the church in the first place. Defeated again.
Some Christians have decided that they just can’t win, won’t win. I have to conclude that much of the Christian church is a long way from the courage and spirit of that British prime minister. No longer do we have among us Churchill, but church, ill! Church, sick. Church, self-defeated. Church, ill, instead of Churchill.
How are we going to build up the courage of God’s people? We are, after all, the inheritors of folks of whom it was once said, "These people have turned the world upside down." What are the spiritual decisions, what are the spiritual resources, which will help us become faithful and courageous again?
I think I’ve found a good part of the answer here toward the end of Paul’s Galatian letter:
Galatians 6:7-10
The spirit of Churchill, indomitable courage; or the spirit of church, ill, defeated? What makes the difference?
I
One part of the answer is motivation. Motivation. What are we working for anyway? If you and I are working for material success, we are likely going to experience disappointment. But if we can learn to work for spiritual success, we will find our labor far more fulfilling.
Paul says, "You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit."
The question is motivation. Are we here to compile a record of material gains? Is the measure of success how many are in the pews and how many dollars are given and how many new members join? These things are not unimportant. They do measure what we are doing. But they are not everything. And, in fact, you and I can get so caught up these symbols of success that we forget what the church is really all about.
I have always hated the question people feel compelled to ask when they find out what I do. Why is it they have to ask, "How large is your congregation?" What is it with us, anyway, to have to have numbers for everything? I know very few pastors other than Rev. Cherry who really want to answer that question!
Well, frankly, one of the reasons I hate the question is that it makes me become too honest about what I am tempted to want, and what I am tempted to want is not always what God wants. In answer to the question, "How large is your congregation?" I can, if I want to, answer very concisely: "There are about 750 persons on our roll." The trouble is that the person asking the questions usually pursues that with some comment like, "Oh, that’s really a big crowd; how do you get them all in your little building?" And then of course I have to go on and say that about 150 are completely missing and may even be deceased; that another 300 are pretty marginal; and that of the remaining 300 we can expect to see an average of 200 on a given Sunday.
Now do you know what’s most troublesome about all of that? What’s troublesome is not only that several hundred of God’s foot-soldiers are asleep on the sidelines; what’s troublesome is not only that several hundred of those for whom Christ died are indifferent; what is more deeply troublesome is that I feel a degree of personal failure in those numbers! I feel my own prestige diminished by low numbers! Do you see what I am saying? I am saying that whenever I get caught up in wanting success, investing in success, as the world measures it, then I am going to be defeated. I am going to lose. You and I cannot win that way.
"You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh. "
But if we use another measure, another motivator, it will make a difference. "If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit." If you begin to look at what happens in human lives and how they are changed by what we do, then we can be winners, even if our statistics don’t look so good. I learned a long time ago, doing campus ministry, that we would never have huge numbers of students involved in our campus programs. Even a hundred students might be less than one per cent of a large university population.
But if I could see at least a few of them growing spiritually, if I could sense someone developing personally, then I could feel that all the work was worthwhile. I have labored long and hard to put some event together, some retreat or other workshop, and only a few people would register to come, until I would get disgusted with it and almost wish I could find an excuse to cancel it ... only to have that event challenge someone, shape someone in a deep, profound way.
No, Christian leaders, your task is not about making statistics look good; it’s not about the world’s standards of success. If you want to share in the undefeatable spirit of a Churchill, rather than be mired down in the spirit of a church, ill, then begin with the right motivation. Invest for spiritual payoff, not material. "If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit."
II
So right motivation is the first ingredient in finding the courage to be the church. The second ingredient is making the choice to do solid things, meaningful things, things that are truly worthy of the gospel.
Once you and I know that we want the church to succeed not so that we can look good, but because it matters to human lives, then we have to decide that we are going to create a program that is solid, real, and substantial.
Paul puts it this way, "So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up." Let us not grow weary in doing what is right.
The perennial temptation of the Christian church is to choose to be entertaining rather than edifying. It’s so easy to come down on the side of the flashy and the glamorous, but the truth is that the victory lies with those who will take the time to do serious, solid, Christian work. To do the right things.
When I went to the University of Kentucky as the Baptist campus minister in 1966 I took over from a man who was a great guy running a busy, active campus program. I went in to meet with him and get some orientation. His whole conversation was about: get the prettiest sorority girls to show off at freshman orientation; take the student choir on tour to some exotic place where big churches will give us big offerings; and. above all, don’t let the students elect a woman as president of the group. It sends the wrong message! When that was finished. I asked, "Well, what about the Bible study program? Are there any study groups of any kind?" With a wistful look in his eye and a wave of his hand, he declared, "It would be nice, but, you know you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink!" All show, no substance. Needless to say, there were changes made in that program over the next four years, lots of changes, because, as much fun as it is to be flashy and glamorous, victory lies with those who will do serious, solid, Christian work. "Let us not grow weary in doing what is right."
The Christian Century magazine is publishing a series of articles on the great churches of America and is currently revisiting congregations it wrote up forty years ago as vibrant young churches. After the passage of forty years, some of these churches are just shadows of their former selves. But others have thrived, despite all the changes they have seen. I was particularly struck by the magazine’s article about a Lutheran church in Minneapolis, the largest church in its denomination, with some 8000 members, well up from the 5000 it had in the 1950’s. Those who went to study it made this observation: First Lutheran Church is not doing anything especially unusual or spectacular. It is doing what churches ought always to do: preach and teach and minister; but it is doing all of these things very well. It is doing all these things very well.
Oh, let’s not be tempted by gimmicks to obscure the value and importance of what we are doing. It is an ever-present temptation to think that if we could only be a little more entertaining, then they will come. As one member said to me last Sunday, after the sermon with the pecan sandies treat at the end, "Next Sunday, can you preach about steaks?!" Or like the photograph I saw in a magazine picturing a pastor who had vowed to sit up on the church roof until the Sunday School attendance doubled! Man, if I were to try that, you might as well put feathers on me and turn me into a weather vane, because no amount of persuasion of that kind will change your habits!
But no, Christian leader, church leader: victory is not about being flashy. Victory is not about putting up a good show. The church will remain sick as long as it thinks it has to be shallow and merely entertaining. (By the way, I did not suggest that it has to be boring either).
Do you want the spirit of a Churchill, undefeatable, solid? Or do you want to remain the church, ill, always bedazzling with some new toy? Victory lies in choosing to do good things and to do them very well, and we will not suffer defeat. "Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up".
III
My challenge, then, to every member of this congregation, whether elected to office or not, is to be positive. Whatever you do, be positive. Having determined that your motivation is not for your own ego; having settled that it’s more important to stay by the stuff doing what is authentic than it is to grab something fly-by-night, I just want to insist that if our church is to be victorious, we will each need to be positive.
Again the words of the Apostle, "So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith."
Whenever we have an opportunity, let’s go to work for the good of all.
If you’ve been a leader over a number of years and you feel kind of burned out, I will ask you to do something very important. I will ask you to back off from your leadership role for a moment and find out why you are doing it. What is your real motivation? When you have that settled, whenever you have an opportunity, go back to work for the good of all.
If you are a new leader and you feel unsure of what you should be doing, I will ask you to do something very simple. I will ask you to think about specific persons, individuals, not the church as a whole, but persons. What can you do to help this person, that person, that other person? Think personally, and then wherever you have an opportunity, work for the good of all.
If you’re on the sidelines, you’ve not had any leadership roles and maybe you’ve even turned them down when they were offered, I have a searching question for you. What difference are you making in anybody’s life? Will it matter that you have passed this way? Who will notice, who will appreciate you? If you’re on the sidelines, isn’t this the time to look for an opportunity to get in the game and to work for the good of all?
And, most pointed of all, if you’re one of those members who is drifting out of involvement ... you’ve stopped attending worship as much as you once did, you go to your class occasionally but you just do the minimum and then disappear... if you’ve somehow given up on the notion that this will ever be a truly great church ... then I must ask you whether your silence is not damaging and destructive. You need to do something positive. You need to make known your concerns; you need to honor the family of faith enough to speak your heart; and most of all, you, like all the rest of us, whenever there is opportunity, you must work for the good of all, especially for those of the family of faith.
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival ... we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Churchill or church, ill? In the name of Him who promised that the very gates of hell would not prevail against His church, which spirit will it be for us?
