A Four Box Weekend

Walking through the darkened sanctuary early Monday, I noticed that every Kleenex container was empty. Between the Saturday night prayer time and the Sunday service we had gone through at least four boxes. That's a lot of nose blowing and tears.

It hit me that Kleenex loss may be the best way to measure church health - better than the inflated attendance reports most churches file with headquarters or those goofy spiritual health diagnostics cooked up in  publishers' conference rooms.

Of course some of those may have been happy tears, but given the strains some of our folks are under and the monster challenges staring our church family in the face, I bet a lot of them had some pain driving them - what old time devotional writers called "travailing".

Before Moses began to codify worship and contemporary church big wigs and spirituality experts began to develop soul tight straight jackets, the ancient patriarchs seem to know that good prayer always involves 2 things: obedience and sacrifice. I'm glad we don't sacrifice Elsie the Cow anymore. In her absence though it looks like a lot of believers have the idea that having skin in the game is no longer required. No sacrifices necessary. In spite of the New Atheist claims and the fundamentalists' wrong headed pronouncements, appeasing a brooding, petulant Almighty was not part of the recipe. Locking in our participation and insuring our meaningful involvement - that's why sacrifice became part of worship, and a vital part. Efficiently engaging us in what God is up to is why sacrifice was instituted and remains necessary. Sacrifice is a missing ingredient in many a wobbly approach to God. Without sacrifice I'm just another disengaged spectator.

Sacrificial tears emptied the tissue boxes last weekend. I'll bet God was pleased with every wet, wadded up Kleenex. It was a sign of sacrifice. It indicates I've landed in a healthy, if slightly congested church.