Jesus is meant to be building his church but my church is a bit small and struggling, and doesn't seem to impact the city much, and a couple of other local churches have closed recently. What can we say?
I don't think this promise of Jesus about building his church is about any one local church.
But we *know* Jesus will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We know the kingdom will come. We know God's will will be done here on earth as in heaven. We know that mountain will be the greatest mountain. The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
It is very slow and hard here and we are only just holding our own.
The church is in exile and we are strangers. The West is under judgement and civilisation is crumbling. But we've been here before. There may be a new Dark Age in the West. An element of retreat for the sake of advance may be necessary.
We must be church. Theological theology. The worst thing we can do is sell out or ape the foolish failing world. We must not go for the gimmick or the quick fix but for the Psalms and the Supper.
We must teach our kids and grandkids. Jesus will be faithful to a thousand generations so we are in this for the very long term.
And we rejoice to suffer with Christ outside the city wall. And the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the church. Let us preserve and treasure up what we can and pray for endurance.
And meanwhile let us rejoice that the church of Jesus Christ is exploding in Africa and the Far East and Latin America. The next millennium may be much more Christian than that last. There are more believers now than ever. But the future will be different from the past and we will be humbled by this as African pastors once again lead the global church. Let us pray for new Benedicts in the West and new Augustine's from Africa.
Grace and peace.
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