Food for Thought

Will Churches Go the Way of Bookstores?

Rev. Dr. Wesley Smith, II

September 16, 2019

Bookstores are becoming harder and harder to find. I know there are plenty of books around, but there are not many bookstores, especially used bookstores. I find that very saddening. It is still possible to order books online and it is easy to read books digitally. But that is not the same thing as going to a bookstore where I not only buy a book, but am able to talk to others about books, discuss the importance of books, and share a bond with those who love books.

I consider myself fortunate that I can still remember the bookstore in Hillsdale, MI owned by Mr. Ansell where I bought my first little paperback book about opera; I can still remember the bookstore in Missouri where there was a whole bunch of Penguin Classics where I bought the Barchester Chronicles series by Anthony Trollope; and I still remember Don Tucker who ran the bookstore where I bought so many of my Old Testament Theology books. These places, these people, and these books are an important part of my history and helped make me the person I am. Books don’t exist in isolation, they are part of the community that I belong to. The same thing could be said about belonging to a church.

When my son was in college he was assigned a paper on the subject of whether receiving communion from a church drive-through window was really receiving grace from the body and blood of Christ. That assignment was not given to him as a joke; he was asked to write about it because even ten years ago churches existed with drive-through windows for communion.

I’m not going to enter that specific debate; I hardly think I need to. I mention it, though, because drive-through communion is just one of a multitude of ways that the value, significance, and meaning of church is changing drastically. Quickness, efficiency, ease, profit, compatibility with the current culture, reduction of the Christian message to a soundbite, and a lack of warmth are the current gods that strive to define the Christian church

Without diminishing the value of technology and the importance of homebound Christians being able to see and hear worship services online, there is more to being the church -- the people of God -- than individuals watching a service in the isolation of their home. Christianity is not a drive-through religion, it is the embodiment (literally!) of Jesus Christ. When St Paul describes the church as the body of Christ, he means that we exist as part of a community and that we share a common history (as people who have received grace) and a common love (of the God who saved us by his grace).

Here are some things that church means to me. Church means joining my voice with the voices of others to sing about the feast of victory that God has prepared for us. It means feeling God’s presence as the congregation jointly praises His name. It means knowing that the people sitting around me are my brothers and sisters in the Lord and that they love me. It means knowing that my brothers and sisters in Christ support me in the same way that four friends lowered a young man through a roof so that Jesus could heal him. It means being reassured that even as we share our struggles together, we can share our stories of faith together.

I still need a used bookstore where I can go digging for just the right book, knowing that I can share the joy of finding it with others who have likewise found an important book from long ago. But more than that, I need to be part of the people of God who not only share my faith but support me and encourage me in my faith. For that, I need a church. Food for thought, indeed.