Q & A

I am the pastor of a church.  More exactly, in my current setting, I am one of two pastors serving a church in Bloomington, Indiana.
 

People ask great questions of the church.

I was reminded of this just the other day when I received a phone call from someone doing some “church shopping,” who wanted answers to some very specific questions about the United Methodist Church.

I think back over my forty plus years of ministry and I recall some of the more intriguing, the more troubling, and the more to-the-point questions I have been asked.  Here, as best I can recall, are some of them:

~If God really exists, why can’t you prove it to me?
~What’s the deal with evil, anyway?  Why does an all-powerful and all-loving God even allow evil to exist? 
~Why are so many Christians so mean-spirited?  And nasty? It seems like Christianity is mostly about being judgmental and closed-minded, don't you agree?
~What in the world does that whole “atonement” thing actually mean?
~Hey, I believe in God?  Why do I have to narrow that down to the Christian God?
~What’s the deal about God actually writing the Bible?  Seriously, is it written by God, or by people, or by people guided by the Holy Spirit, which is in some strange way supposed to be the same as God, or what?
~Do I really have to go to church every Sunday? Really?
~Could you tell me plainly how being a Christian can actually improve my life?
 

(I will allow you time to forward the correct answers to those questions to my email account.)

I hope people never shy away from asking those questions of their church.  More than any partial answers the church might be able to supply, the conversation would engage both the questioner and the church in some of the most important facts of life.  (Important facts that folks are too often afraid to ask about; and the church is way too often unable to articulate.)

As we have those conversations we may want to remember some answers Jesus gave his earliest followers when they asked questions (the same kind of questions you and I ask to this day):

~God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser…so let us be aware of the serendipity all around us.

 ~God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls…so let us keep our eyes and hearts open to the beauty of this life.

~God's kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish…so let us not go throwing any of those fish out of the net. 

 An old Yiddish Proverb states: To every answer you can find a new question.