The Pressures of Easter

I ran across a blog recently called “11 Reasons Pastors Struggle on Easter.” I resonated with a lot of the points made, like the business of Easter weekend and the pressures that come with increased expectations during the Easter season. But one of the given reasons that pastors struggle on Easter just made me sad: “Pastors get a glimpse of what the church could be… but typically isn’t.” The explanation given was, “Parking lot attendants are ready, and they even arrive early. Greeters are well dressed and easily identified. The best musicians and singers are enlisted. The sermon is well rehearsed. The church gives its best for this one day – but then returns to mediocrity the following week. That’s frustrating.” What makes me sad is my sense that for many of our churches, this is our vision of what a great church looks like: well-dressed greeters, talented musicians, and a flawlessly delivered sermon. But how close to a biblical picture of the church is this? You can have all of these elements and still not have something that can biblically be called a church. I am burdened for the church because I think that we are losing ourselves in the struggle for a well-oiled Sunday spectacular, and we are forgetting what it really means to be a church. Church is not an event, a time of the week, or a place, but a group of people. The success of the church is not measured by how professional we appear on Sunday morning but by the content of our proclamation and the character of our lives. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, “My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit,  so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power” (HCSB). One of my fears for the church is that we are getting so caught up in putting our best foot forward that we are in danger of leading people to trust in us: the persuasiveness of our words, the talent of our leaders, and the grandeur of facilities. The real test of a believer though is not whether they will come to our services, but whether they have been changed by the gospel and gifted with the Spirit of God. So what happens when life hits hard and the dynamic speaker is nowhere to be found, the well-dressed greeters aren’t there to point the way, and the lighting show isn’t there to illuminate us in our time of despair. What are we left with? We are left with the truth that we have learned, the Spirit that we have been given, and the believers that have become our family to walk alongside us. What we need in our worship services is not more of us and our talents, but what we need is a demonstration of the power of the Spirit of God. I am not arguing for laziness in worship or in the preaching of the Word. But giving our best has less to do with elevating to prominence the most talented and presentable among us, and it has more to do with proclaiming and trusting in the one who changed us, believing that he can change others too. In other words, do people leave our services thinking much of us, our talents, our capabilities, and our achievements, or do they leave thinking much of our God? Do they leave trusting in our might, or do they leave trusting in Almighty God?