“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What is the foundation of a healthy church? (repeat.) Do you know how many church polls or articles you can find online that attempt to answer this question? Hundreds, thousands. I did some digging through the Barna Group archives for my own research. If you are unfamiliar with Barna, they are one of the largest, leading Christian research firms, studying the intersections of faith, culture, church leadership, and generational trends. In addition to research, the Barna Group can be contracted to evaluate local parish health through its ChurchPulse Assessment—a framework featuring fifteen dimensions or metrics of holistic congregational health. These metrics include such things as (1) connected community, (2) worship experience, and (3) prayer culture, which they categorize under “Nurturing Foundations”; in addition to (4) faith sharing, (5) serving others, and (6) leadership development, which they categorize under “Sending Foundations”; lastly, (7) future focused, (8) data informed, and (9) resource stability, or financial health, which they categorize under “Leading Foundations.” Nurturing Foundations, Sending Foundations, and Leading Foundations—these three categories comprise the Barna infrastructure for holistic parish health. I do not doubt the insight of Barna’s ChurchPulse Assessment; however, on the webpages and article links that I perused… something …was noticeably missing.
And to make it clear that I am not simply picking on or pointing a finger at Barna, I dove into a number of other research articles focused on “healthy church foundations,” such as an article from Margaret Diddams, the editor of the Christian Scholar’s Review, for Outreach Magazine, aptly titled, “A Healthy Church Foundations.” This was a 3,100-word essay, eleven pages, double-spaced, 12-point font (trust me—I checked it in Microsoft Word). It is more than twice as long as the sermon you will hear today. To get right to the point: in that article, written by a Christian, about the Christian religion, about the health of the Body of Christ, the name of Jesus appears once. The name of Jesus appears once, and it is in the context of a critique of vague church mission statements. Diddams writes,
“Mission statements are supposed to help delineate what a church focuses on, but with a pithy three-sentence structure such as “Love Jesus. Serve Others. Change the World,” they are often too encompassing—and thus too amorphous—to guide decisions about what to invest in” (Diddams, “A Healthy Church Foundations,” https://outreachmagazine.com/features/77755-healthy-church-foundations.html).
I ask again, brethren: What is the foundation of a healthy church? In today’s Epistle, St. Paul writes,
“For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:9-11).
“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (emphasis mine). Brethren, there are so many churches—Orthodox and otherwise—that are growing, that are flourishing, bursting at the seams, undergoing building projects, expansion projects, beautification projects. They are starting church schools and have so many para-liturgical activities: Sunday School, Youth programs, Vacation Bible Schools, soup kitchens, community-partnership programs. They are hitting those metrics of “connected community,” and “prayer culture,” and “leadership development” and “financial health.” We should give God thanks for this growth. There is a kind of spiritual revival happening in America, and the Orthodox Church has found itself, in the last 5-6 years especially, in the limelight. Catechumen numbers are on the rise. I am sure many of us saw the record number of baptisms being reported over the last Paschal cycle: 10 baptisms at this church, 20 baptisms at this church. At St. Andrew’s Antiochian Orthodox Church in Riverside, CA (Fr. Josiah Trenham’s parish), 114 catechumens were baptized this year. What an incredible number!
As I have just said: “We should give God thanks for this growth.” But sometimes, I believe, when we hear these numbers and the correlated growth—spiritual or numerical—we are tempted to ask ourselves, “How are they doing it?” We are tempted to ask ourselves, “Can we too manufacture this sort of growth?” God forbid we ever use such language! “Manufactured growth.” The reality is: sometimes growth is the result of intentional, intensive manufacturing. This is so apparent in the modern Evangelical worship scene—smoke machines, and dry ice, and pyrotechnics, and lasers; evangelists flying in on bungee cords and harnesses; big screens… the biggest of big screens; loud rock music, large speakers and subwoofers. To the discerning eye, even to the un-discerning eye, simply to the un-indoctrinated eye, the whole think looks terribly manufactured and superficial. But the machine churns out converts. But what are they converts to? They are not converts to Christ. They are converts to “a feeling,” a “spiritual katharsis,” an “entertainment program,” a “seminar.” Many, many buildings have been built, and they are housing many people, and they are facilitating many programs—but the foundation of these buildings is, tragically, not Christ.
Brethren, do we preach entertainment? Do we preach sophistry? Do we preach programs? Do we preach social justice? Or do we preach the pure gospel of the Apostles?
“But we,” [writes St. Paul] “preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23-24, emphasis mine).
[And later, in the same epistle, he continues] “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling” (1 Cor 2:1-3).
Christ born, Christ suffered, Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen from the dead, Christ ascended to heaven and seated at the right hand of God the Father. One fundamental personality in the work of our atonement: Christ. One foundation and head of the Church of God: Christ.
Brethren, are there cults of personality even in Orthodoxy? Is there the temptation to gravitate to charismatic and ambitious persons? Is there a temptation to envy, to pine for, the activities and personalities of other churches? It is a temptation as old as the Apostles themselves. Again, from 1 Corinthians,
“Brethren, you are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos and what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. … So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (1 Cor 3:3-5, 21-23).
I am not saying that any of our Orthodox leaders promote such thinking, such tribalism. It takes a willing people to form a cultus, even a cult of personality. But it is a mentality and a temptation that we must war against, that we must remain vigilant against. Not Fr. David, not Dn. John, not any other Orthodox personality, or father, or elder, or staretz, but Christ; Christ is the solid rock on whom our faith stands (cf. Matt 7:24-25).
Fr. John Reeves founded this parish; in fact, we remember him, fondly—very fondly—as our “founding rector.” But Fr. John Reeves was not the foundation of the Church of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul founded the churches at Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium, and Lystra, and Derbe, and Ephesus, and Philippi, and Thessalonica, and Corinth—quite the “founding rector”! But St. Paul was not the foundation of these churches. Even today, churches are planted and are grown into behemoths by a man and a privileged group of faithful followers; tragically, too often, when said man leaves, that is, the “founding rector,” the church is crippled, then crumbles. What has happened? It is simple: the church has confused its founder with its foundation. The church has confused its founder with its foundation.
What will happen to the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh and Western PA when Vladyka, His Eminence, the Abp. Melchisedek, either retires or reposes? What will happen to the OCA when His Beatitude, the Metropolitan Tikhon, either retires or reposes? We can say confidently: the Church will go on. The Church will go on. The foundation of the Orthodox Church is Jesus Christ, and the centerpiece of her spiritual and liturgical life is Christ. The Divine Liturgy reminds us of this, each and every time it is served: the life of the Church is Christo-centric (the lifeblood of the Church is Christ!). The leadership of the Church is Christo-centric. The spirituality of the Church is Christo-centric. The sacramentality of the Church is Christo-centric. When we hear the prayers of absolution from our spiritual father, who is it that has forgiven us? Christ. And when we receive the holy Eucharist from the chalice, communed by the hand of a man—yes—but who is it that we receive? Christ. From the hand of an old, experienced man, or the shaky hand of a young, inexperienced man; from the hand of a crooked man or a righteous man; from the hand of a wise man or a stupid man; from the hand of a sinner: we receive Christ.
What, brethren, are the signs of a healthy church? Connection, prayer, evangelism, service, financial stability? These things are debatable. Who, brethren, is the foundation of the Church? Jesus Christ. Under this banner, and this banner alone, may we remain united and rejoice together.
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!