A dying church

We often hear about “dying churches,” by which is usually meant a congregation that is not growing but rather shrinking; whose members are getting old; or even one where there seems to be little excitement. To call a church “dying” or even “dead” is highly derogatory. But I was struck and deeply moved by FW’s comments on his “dying church”:

You can layer in my experience living as an ex-patriate here in brasil. the language is portuguese. the culture is as exotic as you can be and still be european based. to be an organic part of the rhythm of the holy liturgy is to realize in a deeply emotional way, that words cannot fully express, the beauty of the phrase “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”.

My church here, the mother church in rio de janeiro for LCMS based lutherans (the brasilian church, like the canadian church used to be districts of the LCMS…) is slowly dying. The beauty of this is exactly the same as the image of our dying-dead Lord hanging on the cross.

My dying church gives meaning to every part of my life and provides the rhythm of death and resurrection. in portuguese. familiar.

Only the Holy Spirit could create a bond where I KNOW that my fellow worshipers share a unity of faith and practice that no organization could impose.

Think…. how odd is it that i could walk into the office of my new pastor and immediately talk in shorthand of the deep mysteries and challenges and joys of being a christian. In portugues. never having met him before.

This, my friends, is the Theology of the Cross– applied to ordinary congregational life. (For a brilliant and illuminating explanation of Luther’s concept by Carl Trueman–a Reformed theologian–read this. It’s so good, we’ll blog about its various points next week, so stay tuned for a series of discussions on the Theology of the Cross.)