Just Singin' for Jesus...

"While I live I will praise the LORD; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being." (Psalm 146:2)

Hear me each Saturday and Sunday Afternoon at 4:00 "Discovering the Word"

The Pond

I remember Alan’s grandmother wanting a pond at the bottom of their orchard. She loved plants and flowers and wanted some cattails and water lilies to add to her collection. Alan’s granddaddy got out their John Deere tractor and put the blade on it and proceeded to dig out an area for her pond. It took a lot of hard work, back and forth with the tractor, digging and scraping until finally it was the size she wanted. There’s a spring in the orchard and he made the pond so that water from the spring would run into the hole he dug, filling it up. Grandmama couldn’t wait!

When it was full, she got her cattails and her lilies and got to work. The end result was beautiful! How perfect it looked at the foot of the orchard! We’d go down there in the evening sometimes and just sit by the water’s edge and talk. How relaxing! Those were some nice times.

But after a while, something began to happen. The water wasn’t so pretty any more and the plants and flowers weren’t growing like they should. When we’d try to go down there for our evening talks, the mosquitoes would run us off! I couldn’t understand what was happening to her beautiful pond.

Alan’s granddaddy explained that, when he dug the hole and fixed it so the spring would run into it, he didn’t think to make a place for the water to run out of it. He said that for a pond to “live” water not only has to go into it, it has to go out. The water, while it looks still, is actually moving. It would take a lot of work to fix it and Grandmama, by this time really didn’t want it anymore, so they ended up filling it in. I remember being down there watching as the dirt was being pushed in. I got a little too close and, because the red clay was so saturated, my foot sank. I couldn’t pull it out! It was like suction! Alan had to come and help me get my foot loose.

When I look around at churches today and hear some of the things that are going on, I think about this pond. People shake there heads and wonder…”What’s happening to our church?” We work and we work to raise money, to buy or build a nice building. A lot of blood, sweat and yes, even tears go in to the planning and execution. We paint and decorate, fix things up really nice. We fill it with lots of activities. Then we stand back and look with pride at what we’ve accomplished. This should get people to come and join our church! On Sundays we go in and sit, enjoying the peace and quiet. We think about our plans for the day, the week while the preacher talks about something in the background. We tend to treat him the way we do the TV at home sometimes. It’s such a nice place to rest and relax after a hard week at work.

Time passes and things begin to not look so pretty any more. Things need to be repaired, spruced up. An eager new member, with lots of ideas, jumps up and says, “Hey, why don’t we try…” Are they suggesting we change something!? But it’s always been this way! Why does it have to change? People come in to the church but are chased away by “mosquitoes”; those who want their money, time and effort, but not their ideas or advice. New people are fine, new ideas aren’t. And no one is supposed to leave. Not the preacher, the choir director, no one. People are supposed to come there and stay forever and then have their funeral there when they die! It’s hard to understand how anyone would want to leave, why God would call them to go somewhere else, do something else.

But churches are a lot like ponds. In order for them to live, they, too have to have movement in and out; people coming in, accepting Christ, learning, growing, spreading their wings and going wherever God may lead them. As people and their needs change, things in the church need to change. I’m not talking about giving in to the ways of the world and trying to be like it. I’m talking prayer sought, Biblically based, Christ led changes to meet the needs of its people. Change can be hard sometimes but it’s necessary. If everything comes in and nothing goes out, if it always stays the same, then, just like the pond, it will become stagnant, the spirit will shrivel up and the church will die. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and seek his will, in all things. We have to be careful not to get sucked in by the forces of the evil one or one day the church will be gone…just like the pond.