New Beatitudes for an Old Church

Let’s just stop for a minute. Just stop. Let’s take a break from talking around our denominational tables and clergy circles about the state of declining churches. Let’s pause for a moment from all the pedistalling of pastors who take their churches from 20 to 2000 members. Let’s stop beating ourselves up for somehow failing our forebears and our God by somehow letting the Church in our charge fall into the gutter, heading, we fear, for extinction. Rather than pulling out our hair with frustration and fear…or trying to set bigger and more ambitious goals for ourselves…or trying to do more of things that are not working begin with…let’s just stop and listen to some adapted Good News. Blessed are the empty pews – they make space for angels. Blessed are those who nurse old buildings, they keep the sacred flame in secret spaces. Blessed are the tiny acts of tired people, they are the seeds of revelation. Blessed are the 90-year-old organists – they hold the songs of heaven in their bones. Blessed are the keepers of the kitchen - they tend the holy hearth of God’s kin-dom. Blessed are the tentative treasurers – they dare to dance with the dangerous Spirit. Blessed are the grandmothers who tenaciously attend, sit alone, and grieve their family’s disinterest - their prayers will birth a new age. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – they shall see the heart of God long-overlooked. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – their tears cut the crusts of false prosperity and pride. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – their laments in dark corners are the laboring groans of a new creation.