I was reading an article from the H.E.B. Foundation Magazine Echoes, and I came across a description of a summer retreat led by Adam Neder. The retreat was titled “Faith in the Ruins.” A description of the retreat in the promotional material for it sums it up: “…as challenges multiply, as the church perfects the art of discrediting itself, as friends leave the faith, many Christians are feeling exhausted, disoriented, and discouraged. Some wonder how much longer they can stick with Christianity–or even if they want to.”

That’s where the 10 observations by Neder came in. I looked at them and thought I would do a series of prayer journals on the 10 observations the article mentioned Neder covered during the retreat.

#6. The Church exists for the sake of the world.

Dear God, I think before I address the observation above, I need to step back and ask a different question: Why do I exist? Really quick, however, I want to point out something I just noticed. Numbers 5 and 6 are actually a bit redundant and, I suppose, #6 builds on #5 so it cannot exist without #5 being first. As a refresher, #5 is, “The point of the Church is to receive and reflect the love of God in Christ.” What caught my eye this morning is that #5 starts with “The point of the Church…” while #6 starts with “The Church exists for…” Two different ways of saying the same thing, but he starts with receiving and reflecting your love and then moves to doing #5 so we can be here for the sake of the world.

Now that I have that out of the way, I want to go back and look at my first question: Why do I exist? I think the answer for that question is probably pretty easy. I am here to worship you. I am part of your creation and if all of us remain silent in our worship then the rocks will cry out (Luke 19:40–although I might be taking that verse slightly out of context for my purposes here). At the most basic level, that is why I am here. Everything I experience, while it might have other purposes in your plan, contains the ingredient that you expect my worship. You expect my submission. You expect my repentance for my sins. You expect my attention. You expect my dependence. You are a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). You don’t want me to put my faith in myself, my country and its economy, government or military, my wife, my children, my parents, etc. I am here to worship you and you alone. So that’s the core of why I am here.

Frankly, all of why we are here can be found in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. that goes for us as individuals and as your Church:

• Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name: Worship
• Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven: Wishing for your will to be done in the world at large, but also through my life.
• Give me this day my daily bread: Dependence.
• Forgive me of my sins: Repentance.
• As I forgive those who sin against me: Personal growth for me and spreading your love to others.
• Lead me not into temptation: Help me to stay pure.
• Deliver me from evil: Back to dependence, but this time with a twist of committing to live righteously.
• For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever: This one isn’t always in there, but we are back to worship and submission.

So that’s a crude summary of why I exist. Now, why does the collection of individuals doing these things and calling itself the Church exist? I think the first thing is that I will be better at doing the list above if I am doing it as part of a collective as opposed to being on my own. It’s like the piece of charcoal burning off by itself as opposed to being on a pile with other pieces of burning charcoal. We burn hotter and brighter together. We accomplish things like providing warmth and cooking food more effectively in a group. So I suppose we exist as a collective Church to help us and then help others. Helping others can simply include serving, but ultimately it’s to bring others to you as well so that they might experience the fullness of life in you.

Father, help me to know how to effectively be part of your Church. It starts with my own discipline of worshipping you, submitting to you, and repenting to you. Then it moves to making myself available to others in your Church for both accountability for myself and then service to them. When my kids were little and didn’t want to go to church because they weren’t “getting anything out of it,” I would remind them that maybe their reason to be there was to help someone else to get something out of going. So help me to remember that and be that as well. Finally, help me to know how to work corporately with your Church and individually to bring others into your family and be worshippers of you. Help me to do all of this through the humility and love you would have me present because you and I both know I have nothing about which I can boast on my own. I’ve done nothing apart from you.

You are my God. Holy Spirit, counsel me today. Jesus, help me to learn from you today. I worship you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as my one true God,

Amen