Foundations of Faith

Next Sunday the Pleasanton Church of Christ will celebrate it’s Centennial Celebration. Think of it, 100 years in existence. Starting with only a few families meeting together during the pioneer days of our state the Church has slowly grown to over two hundred souls currently meeting together and has established a wonderful legacy of spreading the message of the Gospel of Christ beyond their own borders and even into the far corners of the world. As we celebrate the accomplishments of the Church in the past 100 years and remember it’s humble beginnings, it is important for us also to ponder it’s future and want to draw upon lessons learned from the past. One of those lessons became very clear to me years ago when I was travelling on one of my first mission trips to India, accompanying my father Don Norwood and former Elders Ned Royal.

We were in the city of Mysore, which was one of the great cities built by the Maharaja of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, who was a mogul ruler of south India in the early 18^th century. We had toured his magnificent palace earlier in the day, and we had scheduled to meet with the three local Churches in that city. The last meeting of the day was started at nightfall and continued by the light of a single dim light bulb supplemented by candlelight.  The majority of the people that made up those congregations were converts from the Hindu religion.  Most of them were very young in the faith and still had only a rudimentary understanding of the doctrines and teachings of the Church. They were naturally always comparing the Hindu thinking and experiences to their new faith in Christ.  The Hindu religion is very tied and entrenched in a brick and mortar mentality since their Gods themselves are indeed idols that have been crafted and built by human hands.  The Hindu temples that are literally everywhere in the Indian landscape are huge stone edifices adorned with all kinds of strange half human half beast mythical creatures. The stonework and the architecture of these temples are testament to the skill and creativity of their fertile minds.  Worshiping these “Gods” for years makes a difficult transition to understanding some of the elementary truths of the Gospel.  God is a spirit and cannot be crafted in some image envisioned by man’s mind.  No man has seen him or heard him but comes to know him through faith in Christ Jesus.  That God’s spirit does not live in temples made by the hands of men but rather God spirit indwells his people and that collectively his people make up his body the Church. 

These concepts in the beginning are hard to grasp for a people who have all their lives looked at God as a huge stone figure, which is the image of a spiritual creature they fear to displease. They are constantly sacrificing to it to gain its approval and blessing.  They are constantly building up the temples and the grander and more magnificent the temple the more the people take pride in it, some traveling in pilgrimages for miles to worship at the famed temple.  I have witnessed them walking bare footed, lashing themselves, torturing themselves as they go believing that if they make a vow to the Gods to pilgrimage and sacrifice at the temple they will receive the desire of their heart, some favor the Gods may impart.

In Mysore that night as the worship service was concluding one of the Indian brothers meekly came forward with a letter of petition, which he read, by candle light as another translated. The point of the petition was a request for the American missionaries to donate money to them for the acquisition of property and materials in order to build a suitable worship facility. The idea was a simple one that we heard often repeated from the new Indian Christians in those early days of our mission effort. The idea was in a phrase “If you build it they will come”.  They thought that in order to spread the gospel to their community they would have no legitimacy or respect from their Hindu neighbors unless they built a sanctuary that was as impressive and attractive.  They viewed the brick and mortar church building itself as the key to their legitimacy as a church and no one would consider them as a viable religion without some kind of temple that could be seen by men. My Dad began to bristle a bit being quite annoyed at the request at first but then catching himself, and in spite of his physical weariness he then patiently answered the request with a short lesson about the power of the Gospel message. He spoke about how the power of the Gospel message itself would be the very instrument that would draw their neighbors to the church. The Gospel needs no help from any brick and mortar temple to grow and thrive once planted in the hearts and mind of people.  Colossians 2:8-10  “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power”

 This principle I find is fundamental and sadly misunderstood even among more mature Christians on both sides of the ocean.  No we have not come to finance and build church buildings all over south India. Instead we have come to plant the Gospel seed.  Plant it deep in the hearts of men and then nourish it and cultivate it with encouragement and teaching from the written word. Now after more than 35 years of work in south India there are thousands of small congregations working and growing and thriving. Most worship in small mud and mortar buildings with bamboo thatch roofs, but the body of Christ in India is spreading the message of the grace of Christ to their neighbors and growing in numbers daily.

In America today many Christians have there own version of “If you build it they will come mentality”.  Many modern churches seem to think that the Gospel message by itself has no power to draw modern Americans to it.  They see the skepticism and the growing animosity toward Christianity in America and they think that their neighbors simply will not be attracted to the message of the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, which is the core of the Gospel message. They are instead turning to human reasoning and ingenuity to, as it were, sweeten the message in order to make it more attractive to its carnal neighbors. Some have gone as far as deny the resurrection of Christ or deny the doctrine of propitiation all together in order to make Christ more palatable to the world.  American Christians have built huge brick and mortar temples as well believing that these great monuments to their own creativity will somehow impress and attract worldly men into coming into the borders of the kingdom. The hope is that once inside the buildings, and enjoying all the amenities that money can provide, they will be slowly converted and eased into the harness of the “yoke of Christ.”

We should take note of the lessons of European church history, home of many of these huge edifices that though are impressive to the human eye are virtually empty and are an albatross around the necks of men who though professing Christ have forgotten the simple Gospel foundation. They are now entrapped by the upkeep and expense of these huge cathedrals while the temples are dwindling empty of worshipers who have found the ritual worship oppressive and empty of meaning. As Christians have sought to be attractive to the American culture they find themselves at a crossroads. Do they truly believe in the power of the Gospel in its simplicity? Do they still believe that the message that lit a fire in the ancient world still has the power to light a fire in the modern world?

As the Pleasanton Church looks to the future and plans it’s modernization and future construction of facilities I hope it will never forgets its foundation.  John 12:32 “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.”

I pray we will never be so proud of our brick and mortar facilities that we forget to be “not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of Christ unto salvation for everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16.