Many have suggested over the years that the church should be a hospital for the spiritually sick. For many years of my life, I didn’t see the church fulfilling this role but rather focusing solely on discipleship. However, my perspective changed when I fell into the most broken state of my life.
The church we attended for years held a service every Wednesday night called the “House of Prayer.” The entire service was dedicated to worship, scripture reading, and prayer. It wasn’t for the faint of heart. Every week, it was intense and incredibly powerful. One Wednesday, I found myself at the lowest point of my life, and I needed a spiritual doctor. I needed to go to the spiritual emergency room. That evening, I broke, and the altar became my spiritual hospital bed. I laid there for longer than I could remember, praying, seeking God’s face, direction, and hope for my life. The altar became my hospital bed, and my physician was my Creator.
Dr. Schultz has often quoted the phrase, "It is easier to be traditional than Biblical." While many have associated this phrase with the school and how we need to forget the training we’ve had as educators and seek God’s direction for our school, it can also be applied to the church. We walk into church, hear announcements, sing three songs, listen to a message, are challenged to leave differently, and then have an altar call. We walk out, checking a box, ready for another week, but no surgery was performed on us. We leave with little change within us, head to Cracker Barrel to beat the crowd, then go home to take a Sunday afternoon nap while watching a sporting event. Check, another appointment accomplished.
What if we did away with the tradition of church?
Proverbs 27:17 says, "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." What if we walked into church and allowed those with whom we fellowship to change us? What if we walked into church and allowed the One we’re there to worship to remake us? Would the outcome of church be truly transformational in us and in all areas of our lives?
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. James 1:22-25
Sadly, I sense that too many of us walk into church for a social event rather than a transformational one. The church should be a place where we are confronted with the Word, forced to examine our hearts and minds, much like we examine ourselves in the mirror before leaving the house in the morning. We must arrive at church prepared to understand that we are walking into a spiritual hospital, and we need serious treatment. Too often, we walk in with guarded walls and fail to allow the Word to diagnose and heal us.
When you walk into an emergency room, you know something is going to change. Why do we not walk into church with this same urgency? Could a Sunday morning or Wednesday night be one of the most dualistic places of the week? We know we need help. We know we need a spiritual cast placed on our hearts. We know we are broken, and we know we need spiritual surgery. Yet, we so intently guard against looking deeply into the mirror of God’s Word and allowing it to treat, heal, and transform us. His Word and His Church should reshape and mold us.
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. Malachi 3:2-3
May the church become our spiritual emergency room.
Mr. Euler has 20 years’ experience working in Christian Schools, 12 as a Head of School and is currently the Head of School at Word of God Academy, Shreveport, LA., a ministry of Word of God Ministries.
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