Caring for the Competition
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Yahweh. All the relatives of the nations shall worship before you. — Psalms 22:27
That their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ. — Colossians 2:2
Author
Milagros García Klibansky
Summary: Working ourselves to exhaustion for the church does not save us or earn us eternal life: Christ has done the work, and our part is to embrace him. Nor should we use service to God as a reason to neglect our family responsibilities. The church must be attentive to its families, especially when the burdens of leadership and secular work exhaust those who serve. A united family life, with involved parents and biblical teaching, strengthens the church. Programs are not bad in themselves, but they are when they hinder family time and unity at home. Let us pray for wisdom before putting them into practice, seeking to build up families and glorify God rather than feed personal vanity.
Seeing many Christians busily working tirelessly for the church is common these days. Many still think, despite knowing what the Scriptures say about this, that working to the point of exhaustion pleases God, when He tells us in His Word not to be anxious
, for nothing a person does can save them or give them a claim to eternal life. In that sense, everything has been done: Christ did the work. There is nothing left to do but embrace Him.
Yet many people, using the great work they have to do for God as a justification, neglect what falls to them in their role within the family. The church cannot stand apart from this; it must connect with the families that make it up so that situations like these can be detected and resolved in time, before disaster strikes.
The church must not compete with the family. Today we suffer from a disease called “programs,” which many churches put on to excess. Meetings, beautiful shows, recitals, and other events provoke complaints within the family. Wives feel crushed by the burden of guiding their children; children want to talk with their father about matters in their lives that would be more embarrassing to explain to their mother; husbands feel that the woman they married has changed during the marriage—in some ways for the better—but find it hard to enjoy those changes because of her absence and neglect.
Today, many of those who lead churches also work secular jobs, and this is exhausting because those truly committed to the work are in the minority.
The biblical church was family-oriented, not bound by protocol or conditional on…. Gatherings took place around a table where food was shared. The elders would begin speaking on a subject, and everyone else would offer testimonies and opinions, which the elders would correct. Young people and children participated and were taught to live holy lives, unlike in education today, where the father is barely active or not involved at all.
The quality of life in the home will determine the quality of life in the church. The best work the church today can do is to guide and encourage families to spend time together in unity, grounding their education in the Bible.
Putting on programs is not bad; the problem arises when programs suffocate the family and prevent its cohesion, so that the purpose for which it was created goes unfulfilled.
Any program undertaken in the church needs to be brought before God in prayer, asking for divine guidance and wisdom, and its purpose must be to build up the families of the church. No activity undertaken by the church of Christ should ever serve personal vanity, but rather the fulfillment of God’s purpose among His people and His glory, so that it may be a healthy church and every man may say: “But as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah” (Joshua 24:15)