Church Signs

I enjoy reading Dr. Black and his recent post about "Who is Head of Your Church" echoed some conversations we have been having with family members. When on our trip in the mountains we were driving through a small (well not-so-small for the mountains but small compared to many places in the US) town with a "First Baptist Church" sign. It could have been "Main Street Methodist" or "First Presbyterian" but the point was so obvious - the size of letters of the church and the street address were less than half the size of the letters of the pastor's name (which ironically was a paste-on and not painted directly onto the wood :) - so much for permanence!). Anyway, we laughed at the sight but unfortunately it is often only an obvious outward expression of the truth. And then a few days after returning we were in a discussion with some extended family members about two churches we were members of in ages past. Both have suffered severely because of leaders (pastor in one and deacons in the other) who were totally unwilling to confront blatant grievous sin by leaders in their congregation. They called the church "their" church. They told people that they had been there for xxx years and had ancestors in the graveyard and had authority. Ohhh... how my heart aches to think of what they will have to answer to when the real head of the church returns. Beware - any church where you hear it referred to as anything, yes anything, other than Christ's church, be it "so-and-so's church" or "such-and-such denomination" or "the best music church" is a fair warning to watch out. Just a lesson hard learned by this family that we try to share with anyone who will listen. There are churches out there which try to honor Christ alone and above all things - but they are becoming rarer. Look for the signs. All of them. Literal and figurative. The best ones will be invisible except for the Cross, the glory of Christ, the love of neighbors and the humility of all leaders. Hard signs to put up, harder to see but well worth the looking.