The following Sunday the church was all but empty. Accordingly, the Pastor placed a notice in the local newspapers, stating that, because the church was dead, it was everyone's duty to give it a decent Christian burial. The funeral would be held the following Sunday afternoon, the notice said.
Morbidly curious, a large crowd turned out for the "funeral." In front of the pulpit, they saw a closed coffin, smothered in flowers. After the Pastor delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his congregation to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead church.
Filled with curiosity as to what would represent the corpse of a "dead church," all the people eagerly lined up to look in the coffin. Each "mourner" peeped into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look.
In the coffin, tilted at the correct angle, was a large mirror !
(thanks Mom, for the email! It really hits home!)
2 comments:
Wow! I have goosebumps from reading that. That was a good one. How true. We all have a responsibility to make the church strong and when we don't pull our own weight, a dead church is what we have. It's not just the pastor's responsibility. It's the whole congregation. That's why Paul kept writing those letters. He wanted to keep encouraging the faithful to keep meeting, keep seeking God's faith, keep sharing the gospel with those that need to hear it.
Awesome message.
Oh wow! That is awesome!!!
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