Dear Ray,
Can we allow something to end without treating its ending as a failure of God?
I have been thinking about gatherings that continue because no one knows how to release them.
The people are tired. The familiar words are repeated. The same few members carry the burden of making everything happen.
Yet stopping seems unthinkable.
Too much history is attached to the gathering. Too many sacrifices have been made. Its continuation has become evidence that we remain faithful.
But faithful to what?
The Lord’s word to Sardis exposes the distance that can exist between a reputation for life and the actual condition of a community (Revelation 3:1). Outward continuation does not settle the inward question.
An arrangement can retain its name while dependence upon Christ has been displaced by the need to preserve it.
Weariness is not proof that Christ is absent. Nor is duration proof that we are living by Him.
We need freedom to ask whether an activity serves the life of the members or whether the members have become responsible for preserving the activity.
Can people speak honestly about that?
Can the person who is exhausted admit it without being accused of losing the burden?
Can the gifted brother acknowledge that he has no word to speak without feeling that his identity is collapsing?
If those admissions are impossible, the gathering has acquired a claim over us that deserves examination.
Perhaps a meeting needs to pause.
Perhaps its frequency should change.
Perhaps the people need meals, visits, and practical care more than another scheduled occasion for speaking.
Perhaps a particular arrangement has completed its usefulness and should be released.
Ending an activity does not require abandoning one another.
Our union in Christ was not created by the schedule. Zoe does not cease to be our shared life when a meeting ends. The ekklesia is not identical with the arrangement we have maintained.
We can stop maintaining a meeting and continue caring for the people. We can relinquish a program without declaring our shared history worthless. We can give thanks for what was received without demanding that its outward form remain forever.
If money, property, or practical responsibilities are involved, those matters must be handled honestly. Calling something finished does not excuse leaving others with its burdens.
But once those responsibilities are faced, we need not build a theology that makes continuation compulsory.
Christ’s life is not held inside our schedule.
Ray, I wonder whether some gatherings have become places where everyone waits for permission to admit what everyone already knows.
Perhaps love would begin by making that admission possible.
No accusation. No demand that someone be blamed. No attempt to preserve our importance through one more renewal campaign.
Simply an honest turning toward the Lord together.
Let His life find fresh expression among us. Let an exhausted arrangement go.
We do not lose Christ because something we have maintained can no longer continue.
Let the gathering belong to Him enough that we can let it end.
Your brother,
Brent
