Shame On Some Churches

Ye are the light of the world.

A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel,

but on a candlestick;

and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

(Matthew 5:14:15)

As a little girl I grew up in the foothills of Eastern Kentucky in a little bitty town called Hazel Green.  It was a pretty little place with hills that not only kissed the sky, but also gave this little tomboy many hours of sweet pleasure.  (With seven brothers I had no choice but to be a tomboy did I?) Anyway, to this day nearly fifty years later, I can still remember playing up in those hills, climbing up trees, (and sometimes falling out of those trees) rolling down hills, chasing butterflies in flowering fields and lightening bugs at night, and trying to count the billions of stars you really can see out in the dark country night. 

I can also remember something else that was very special.  I remember getting dressed up in my very best dress, probably the only one I had, as my family was very, very poor.  (Best I can remember my usual attire consisted of my brother's hand me down bib overalls, and to complete my transformation, my daddy cut my hair just like one of the boys!  You would have thought he would have liked having a girl around, but I guess he just didn’t know how to be a daddy to a girl).  Anyways as I was saying, this tomboy dressed up as  best possible because these “nice ladies” were coming to pick me up for church.  I probably even took a bath in the old washtub which was the only bathtub people had up in the mountains.  Even at that, we were careful not to wear it out! Could this possibly be why the mean old kids at school called me “Rusty”?  I suppose it could. (They would be rusty too if they had to fight with seven brothers just to take a bath in their dirty bath water!  They just had no sense at all to understand, but their words hurt my little heart, and it’s probably only the grace of God at work in my life even then, that kept me from hitting them with a baseball bat or anything else I could get my tomboy hands on - like rocks, big ones or little ones, or in-between ones, are very, very handy sometimes!)

Anyway, just like it was yesterday, and sometimes I think it was, I can remember the ride to the church with these “nice clean ladies”.   I can see the church clear as you can see the moon.  It was a little white church that was set way back off the road.  You had to drive quite a way down a dirt gravel road to git to it.  It stood back there all by itself like an angel.  There was no mistaking what it was.  It was a church.  Churches looked like churches then.  What else would they look like? A cow? Anyways, it was just a little white country church halfway back in the woods.  I’ll never forget it as long as I live.  And I don’t want to cause I would be lost and have no hope.   

Anyway, even as young as I was, around five or six best I can remember now, I immediately knew that “church” was something really, really, special.  Not because anyone told me but because I could feel it in those nice ladies who came to pick me up.  I could tell they were “different”, I just didn’t know what caused it.  But I wasn’t afraid of whatever it was, oh, no, I was happy for them to come and get me!.  (I had no desire to hide from them like them Health Department people who came  sometimes to give us young ones shots!)   I was happy not only because I got to ride in a real car which was a big luxury, but also because I knew they were taking me to a special good place.  Again, not because anyone told me, but because I could feel it.  I could feel it in the air inside the church.  There was something different there than anyplace I’d ever been and it made me feel something special.  (Even better than climbing to the top of one of them trees) It was there in the songs being sung, and in what the preacher was saying, and how people acted, and in what they called praying. 

I must admit though that there were a couple of times I was somewhat afraid, as I saw things happening I didn’t understand.  Like the time the preacher was dropping this woman in a big thing of water!  Oh no, my little girl mind shouted in fear, He’s drowning that woman!   Scared me to death! 

But no one else seemed to mind at all.  I didn’t understand this either and wondered what was wrong with them that they didn’t care that this preacher was killing this woman! Something was bad wrong with this, I was sure of it.  I guessed even church people must go off their rockers sometimes because it can’t be right anytime someone kills someone is it?  No sir-ree  or madam…

 And then there’s the time my mommy and me went to church.  Only time I remember it ever happened.  Maybe it was. Anyway, I didn’t know the full extent of all it meant at the time, but my mommy was drinking and running around with bad men.  I guess it must have been bothering her cause she took me to church with her one day.  Well you know what it’s like when you been asleep and a dreaming away and then you wake up, and part of the dream is real clear and the other ain’t?  Well, that’s kind of how it is now.  I kind of remember seeing my mommy go up to the front of the church.  I didn’t know why she was going up there and I didn’t like her leaving me all alone.  Any ways she did anyhow.  I remember afterwards that she was crying, and all these people surrounded her and they was a crying too.  Again, I was scared to death, thinking something bad happened to her. My mother knew I was scared as I started crying too. I remember telling her that I was afraid something bad happened to her up there.  She comforted me and assured me that nothing bad had happened, but that something good had happened, that I wasn’t old enough to understand it then, but that someday when I was older, I would. 

Well this special someday has come, and now I understand, and praise the Lord!.  Now I know that something really, really wonderful happened at church just like mommy said.  It is this last memory that gives hope to my heart that my mommy is in heaven, and that I’ll see her again someday.  I now believe with all my heart that it was on this day that she got saved, and that the tears she and others shed that day were tears of joy for her salvation, and now my tears are of joy too.  Well now, I could share other things with you about things that happened in that little white church that was mighty special, like me, TOMBOY ME (can you believe it!) getting chosen to be the special angel in the Christmas play, that tells the whole wide world of baby Jesus birth.  But no, I said I’m not going to tell you anymore things that happened in that little church because now I want to tell you why I am sad.

A lot of time has gone by since those innocent childhood tree climbing, fence jumping, rock throwing days.  Almost fifty years.  And much to my dismay, this little tomboy has grown up. (Well, kind of). And the little girl voice is gone.  Things are different now.  Time changes about every thing I guess.  Even churches.  And this is why I’m sad.  Like the passing of one’s carefree childhood, I see another passing of something precious.  It is the death of church.  Church as I knew it as a little girl. And church as Christians have known it since it’s beginnings in the book of Acts.   I read its obituary in the local newspaper just the other day, and already I am mourning its loss.  But as there are often signs of illness before a loved one passes on, we have seen signs of sickness in the church warning us that its death was near too. The headline read “It’s church, but don’t call it that”. (Few may see that statement as a death warrant or its worldwide implications, and that’s just the way the destroyer (Satan) wants it.  He is the instigator behind the name change.) 

The article went on to say that the word church is being abandoned so that congregations can choose catchier (meaning more worldly, fun, appealing, non-church, ungodly) names to attract members, appeal to young people. They also are deciding to drop traditional denominational names so they won’t be identified (therefore limited or possibly rejected) because of heir particular denominational beliefs, or doctrines. 

They are choosing names like: Greater New Hope Family Center. The High Way Community. Harbor Light. Great Exchange. Praise Tabernacle: Now Faith Worship Center. Trinity Life Center. .Today’s Satan’s buzz word  is inclusion.  Any belief goes.  Any belief is good.  There are many paths to God, and all of them are good.  Love. Peace. Tolerance. Unity.  These are what church is about these days.  Everybody coming together as one.  What many don’t realize is that all this is prophetic, leading up to the One World Church that is part of the end times events as foretold in the Bible.

Some may scoff at what I see as a tragedy and insist this is no big deal.  They will say that “church” is just a word and therefore no big loss. This is not true.  Church is not just a harmless word.  If it were church leaders wouldn’t be dropping it.  They know all too well that “church” is a very special word, a very powerful word, with great particular meaning, and implications.  The fact some churches are abandoning it is very significant.  They are not only abandoning the word, they are also abandoning “church” itself, and this is the real heart of the issue.  The church doesn’t want to be church anymore, at least not God the heaven and earth’s church.  The church isn’t interested in the Lord’s great commission anymore, but in its own.  They want their own God and their own church. And they could care less about the pattern God gave for churches in the book of Acts. 

This is why so many churches are throwing away the old hymn books and songs of faith, and why preachers (another dying word) aren’t preaching from the word of God, but are instead reading from the latest religious bestseller, or even worse, showing a movie and calling it a church service.  Church buildings are being shunned, and men who call themselves ministers are donning their casual worldly attire, and going into bars to have a beer and talk to the patrons there about God.  And if you happen to go to what they now call “a place of worship” or something else, and listen to the music, you would think you were at a rock concert.  This is the new age, and this is a picture of the new “church”, but don’t call it that.  They (and the Devil) would be offended!

Well as I told you earlier, things have changed.  While progress has been made in some areas that have improved the quality of our life, we sure have messed up some things that needed to stay just the way they were.  And just the way God designed them to be.  But then we know from God’s holy word (which is getting harder and harder to find these days as the enemy has changed it too) there are two forces at work in the world today.  This is one of the  many things  I learned as a five year old in that little country in Hazel Green.  (Precious memories how they linger…. and sustain us!) .  It was there I came to know that Jesus loved me (even if those mean old kids who called me Rusty didn’t).  It’s also where I learned about the devil. (I think those kids had some of him in them or they wouldn’t have been so heartless, and mean as they could be!).  Today it’s the devil who is behind all the ungodly things that are taking place, not just in the world, but also in churches.  While God is the cornerstone of some, the devil is in control of others, and is using them to thwart, hinder and destroy God’s will for his people and his church.     

Shortly after 9/11 changed the world, I remember seeing a graphic on television.  It was a picture of a traffic control radar screen which showed all the airplanes in the sky all across the country on that fateful day.  The planes looked like hundreds of little white blinking lights across the map of the United States.

The reporter told about how Aviation Controllers were working frantically to get them all on the ground for fear one of them may be part of another attack on our country.  As each plane landed on the ground, one by one, the little lights all across America went out.  And then there were no lights at all.  Just darkness all across America.  I remember a horrible feeling coming over me.  Now as I see church after church turning off their lights, this same horrible feeling washes over me, and to these churches, I say, Shame on you!

Jesus said “Ye are the light of the world.  A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick: and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. (Matthew 5:14:15)

Church leaders, or whatever you prefer to call yourselves these perilous days, if there is no light, where can the lost go to be saved?  To be baptized?  To be added unto the church? To hear the good news?  To receive the bread of life?  To learn about the glories of heaven and the fires of hell?  How can they come to know and love God and learn about Jesus?  How will they know how to live, and where to find strength for the hard times?  If not in your church, WHERE?

Today America’s light is not only being hid under a bushel, but in many instances is being snuffed out. In the darkness our enemy is hard at work.  It’s in darkness he works best.  There is no light to expose him.  So we are in danger.  He knows where we are but we can’t always tell where he is, or where he’s going to strike next.   But there is hope. Jesus promised that there would always be a remnant.  If  a newscaster would show on television a church map of our nation today, the map would show little flickering lights scattered from sea to shining sea.  There are not near as many as there were, but thanks be to God there are still some.  These are the godly churches that have refused to stop shining for the Lord.  The only lighthouses left to show the lost souls on the dark sea of life the way to Jesus.  Oh, that others would stop their foolishness and turn their lights back on!  Christians!  We’ve got to pick up the cross.  We’ve got to fight against the powers of darkness in our world today.  We have got to let our lights shine!  And work to help blinded churches see again, and to shine again!

In closing now, my heart wants, as it so often does, to go back to Hazel Green to that little white country church.  It was there as a little girl that I learned to sing a little song that goes something like this:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine.

Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine.

Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, NO!  I’m gonna let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, NO!  I’m gonna let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Let it shine ‘til Jesus comes, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine ‘til Jesus comes, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine ‘til Jesus comes, I’m gonna let it shine.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

 And this is what this kind of grown up tomboy plans on doing for the rest of my life.  And oh, one more thing. At that little country church I heard the story about how Satan came to be thrown out of heaven.  Best I remember, he wanted to do several things he had no business wanting.  I believe one of the things he wanted to do was to ascend above the stars. Well, I think I’m going to try to help him out.  You see when I was a growing up, I found ways to make my brothers see stars, and so maybe I can help Satan see stars too!  I have the most perfect big rock, and the next time old Satan serpent comes creeping around, I’m going to let him have it………..

Copyright © 2005 By Nancye Sims

The author, Nancye Sims, may be contacted at  .