Tuesday, October 6

 For a brief time, while I was in college, my father served as an Associate Pastor at a fairly large church in Florida. The church facility included a small gymnasium which contained a nice basketball court. My brother and I both were playing ball at the time; me in college and he at his local high school; so we were overjoyed to belong to a church where we could play ball most any time we wanted.

The first full summer we were there we shot hoops together in the church gym almost every day because the gym went unused most of the summer months. It wasn’t long before my brother got the idea to invite some of his teammates to join us. Several of his teammates were African American kids from a different side of town from where the church was located. Sometimes we had to drive over to their neighborhood to pick them up so they could come play ball. And for a couple of days it was great fun.

One day the Senior Pastor of the church stopped by the gym to see what was going on. He stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest and watched this group of black and white kids playing ball. I remember getting the sense that he didn’t look very happy.

The next day when we showed up to play ball we found the doors to the gym chained and locked shut. My brother and I went to our Dad and asked him what was up with the gym being locked. He just said that the Senior Pastor didn’t want us in there playing “without supervision” so he locked the doors.

Now to give that pastor the benefit of the doubt, I understand that sometimes there are issues of supervision and insurance to consider when it comes to the use of facilities. We face those issues at FBCG from time to time. But my brother and I both suspected that the real problem was something somewhat uglier than “lack of supervision”; something along the lines of the pastor being uncomfortable with “unchurched” young men being in the church gym.

It has always seemed to me to be sadly ironic that a church that had the vision and resources to build a gym would actually chain the door shut to keep young men from actually using that gym.

Jesus never intended church to be an exclusive club reserved for those who are religious enough to deserve membership, or for those who appear to have their spiritual acts together, or for those who can afford to pay the bills.

The church is better understood as a kind of hospital for the spiritually sick, tired and dying. Jesus himself said,

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17

Now there are problems with seeing the church like this. A church with open doors can get pretty messy. You might wind up with cigarette butts in the parking lot; you might hear a few curse words in the gym every now and then; people might come who don’t know how they are supposed to act or dress in church.

I mean, if you leave the doors open, you just never know who might find their way in!

Exactly.

Pastor Brian Coffey