While driving to a friend's house to watch the Hogs lose to Kentucky (AARRRGGGHHH!), I noticed a little country church building... I'd seen it a hundred times before... I've even attended worship there...
So as we drove past this little building which sits in a field about 200 feet off the highway, I noticed something I had never noticed before... it has a barbed wire fence around it... OK, maybe there are cattle in the field where the building sits... then I noticed there was a swinging gate across the driveway.
Then I noticed the most striking feature: the gate was closed and latched and...
padlocked.
Wow. A church in a field with a fence and a gate and a padlock. now there's an analogy begging to be made!
I also thought it an unwelcome sight when I first saw the sign beside a church building on highway 60 on the way to Springfield:
the King James Bible Church
I don't know what kind of hearts the members of these churches possess... but the sign and the padlock speaks pretty loudly.
In a day when - more than ever - people need to feel welcome in God's presence and in the presence of His people, it would seem that we should do everything in our power (and everything in His name) to attract seekers to our lives... and to Him... and even to our houses of worship.
Yet these two examples - especially the church behind the padlocked gate - seem to send a very unwelcome message...
Oh, and by the way, there were no cows behind that padlocked gate... evidently they are not welcome either!
May God Bless us as we lift up His Son!
"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
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