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Call to
Worship
If this
meetinghouse burnt to the ground, would there still be a Long
Green Valley Church of the Brethren? Our first hymn this morning
rose out of the ashes of a church fire. When the people who met
there rebuilt their meetinghouse, they named it "Church of
the Messiah." Their new pastor, Robert Collyer wrote a song
to dedicate it. Originally it began, "With thankful hearts, O
God, we come to a new temple built for thee..." Later on the
words were changed to "Unto thy temple, Lord, we come with
thankful hearts to worship thee..." That, however, is not the
end of the story. Just five years later another conflagration, the
great Chicago fire of 1871, raged through their neighborhood and
those folks rebuilt once again. That same pastor wrote another
hymn for that occasion: "O Lord, our God, when storm and
flame."*
Would we still be
a church if our meetinghouse burned to the ground? Likewise, would
we still be the persons whom God created each of us to be if
something happened to this temple of the Holy Spirit we call our
human body? We don’t wish for bad things to happen in order to
answer these questions. Asking them, however, turns us toward our
Savior and Lord.
Come, let us
worship. May this fellowship be a church of the Messiah.
*Hymnal Companion, ©1996,
Brethren Press, p. 360 & 488
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