WHAT I WOULD HAVE TOLD MEL ROBBINS

“...and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (from I Peter 3:15)

One of the many hats that I wear is that I am the Secretary of the Framingham Interfaith Clergy Association. We call it “F.I.C.A.” but people think we’re talking about social security! F.I.C.A. has an arrangement with the MetroWest Daily News that we write a monthly column for them. The particular clergy person who writes the column can have it reflect his or her theological views and political views which may or may not reflect the views and opinions of other members of F.I.C.A. Anyway, I was assigned to write the F.I.C.A. column for March. The person writing the column is supposed to submit it by the 10th of the month. I wrote and submitted mine today. This is what I wrote, and I hope it appears in the paper sometime in the next few days:

WHAT I WOULD HAVE TOLD MEL ROBBINS

Last Saturday morning’s Mel Robbins Show on Boston’s 96.9 WTKK proved to be quite interesting to hear as I drove to an Assemblies of God clergy meeting at our Southern New England District headquarters facility in Charlton. I first caught the last part of an hour which explored the topic of, “Why people lie”. In the next hour of the program, Ms. Robbins raised the topic of the recently published results of the American Religious Identification Survey. According to the Survey, twice as many Americans (that is, 15%) claim to be atheists as was the case twenty years ago. The Survey also indicates that the percentage of people who call themselves “Christian” has dropped 11% over the same time period, and also indicates that those who do identify themselves as “Christian” are less likely to attend church. In fact, Roman Catholic attendance and mainstream Protestant attendance is down, although there is an upswing in attendance at evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic churches. Robbins claimed there is a “4,000% increase” at evangelical churches! I’m not sure where she got that figure! A recent on-line newsletter for clergy from Focus on the Family which I received indicated that the American Religious Identification Survey showed a slight increase in evangelical church attendance (but certainly not 4,000%)!

Mel Robbins asked people to call in and talk about whether they’ve fallen away from church attendance, and/or how people balance church attendance with the pressures of everyday life. She told of being “a very spiritual person” who used to attend a church in the D.C. area largely because “she loved the music” but lamented that her kids’ Sunday soccer games leave no time for church. She also expressed frustration that her mother feels she should be teaching her children Christian traditions such as “The Lord’s Prayer” and should be seeing to it that her children get a religious education. There was an eclectic mix of callers during that hour. In one way or another I’d say the majority fell into the category of, “I think as long as you believe in God and you’re a good person church attendance isn’t that important.”

Had I phoned into Mel Robbins, I might have said something like this: It IS true that church attendance in itself doesn’t equal spirituality. Some people attend church just to please family members, because they were raised that way, or even to make friendships and political connections. There are a sizable number of such people who may not even believe in God. I can understand why someone would find such behavior pointless. But I have a lot of sympathy with Mel Robbins’ mother’s position. While I was having my haircut this past Friday, my barber was lamenting the lack of morals and ethics in our present society. A guy about my age, he longs for a simpler time when most people attended church, believed in God, and held to more traditional values. We had a similar conversation just before Christmas. Television commentator Bill O’Reilley wrings his hands over the negative impact that “secular progressives” have had on our society. I think the barber and O’Reilley are 100% right. As much as this will make me sound like a “fire ‘n brimstone” 1840s revival preacher, we need to get back to God! I’m always shocked at the smart contestants who hold graduate degrees who’ll appear on Jeopardy and can’t answer a question indicating that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount or that Psalm 23 begins, “The Lord is My Shepherd”, or even that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Billy Graham has said that to many people, “Jesus” is nothing more than a swear word.

I think families ought to make time for God and the things of God. Jewish families ought to join a synagogue and make synagogue life a priority. Catholic, Protestants, and those of other faiths ought to find a house of worship and get involved there. Most people want “a nice church to get married in” or “a nice minister to do Aunt Nellie’s funeral”. Frankly, if everybody just “decided to have their own private spirituality” and to go off to soccer games on Sunday morning or whenever, and if nobody stuck with organized religion, there would be NO “nice churches to get married in” or “ministers to do Aunt so-in-sos funeral”. Worse, there would be no faith groups to offer support during times of crisis.

Our church is very small and has limited resources. Yet, as a pastor I was gratified and blessed to receive two phone calls this past Monday morning lauding the wonderful services we had on Sunday. One elderly woman who is facing a number of pressing issues said, “I felt so GOOD. It felt so GOOD to be in the presence of the Lord. It felt so good to KNOW people cared.” Another call from a middle-aged woman expressed similar sentiments. In the Assemblies of God we say that among the reasons we hold church services is for fellowship with God and fellowship with one another. A number of years ago, when I was on staff at a large church a woman began drifting away from church services but let the pastoral staff know she was “watching Robert Schuller on television every Sunday”. Privately, the senior pastor told the staff, “Next time she’s in the hospital I feel like saying to her, ‘call Robert Schuller and see if he will visit you!’”

I think we can all get that senior pastor’s point. Admittedly, it can take a lot of work to rearrange your schedule and find a good church. There’s a very humorous episode of the animated show, “King of the Hill” in which the Hill family shops around for a new church because a new family has been sitting in “their” seats at the Methodist Church. Over several weeks, the Hills visit a Spanish-speaking Catholic Church, a frankly wild and crazy Pentecostal Church, a folksy church which is a throwback to the ‘60s, and a mega-church. After a few weeks at the mega-church, they come home to the Methodist Church where they started. When you’re looking for a church, you can feel like the Hills in that episode. One thing I tell people who are looking for a church is to never judge any church by one visit at one service. You may have happened upon an unusually bad or unusually good service there. Three visits over a few weeks will tell you what that church is really like. Yes, it takes time to find a good church, but they’re out there and with some effort and persistence, you’ll find one.

I hope the Mel Robbins’ of America will seriously think about their priorities and indeed make involvement with a local faith group a priority!