The Blood Church Warning

Luke 3:23-38

Rabbi Dr. Rev. Michael H Koplitz

Luke 3:23   ^aWhen He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Hesli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of ¹Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

A problem with pastoral preaching is sometimes you have to talk about a hard truth that people do not want to hear. Sometimes you have to upset the congregation with truth in order for them to see the problem. It is equivalent to showing a cigarette smoker the scans of their cancer ridden lungs to get them to stop smoking.  This is one of those messages.

My Doctor of Ministry degree was in Christian leadership. My project thesis for this degree was a study of the leadership of pastors and different size churches. The church modeling that I use was based on Arlen Rothague’s work on church modeling for the Episcopal church. His work became the basis of church modeling. Basically, there are four types of churches identified. The family size church, the pastor centered church, the program centered church and the corporate size church. Each of these different churches, because of their size, requires different leadership needs from the pastor. I also discovered reasons for church attendance increase and decrease. I want to concentrate on decreasing attendance and membership in this message.

Inside the family size church, as you would expect from the name, the people are of the same family. In rural areas of Pennsylvania, there are pockets where everyone is a cousin. Well, I should say most people are cousins. I call these the blood family size churches. Family size churches are characterized by having 90 or fewer people attending worship every Sunday. There are family size churches outside of the rural areas, especially in some of the inner cities where small groups of like-minded people come together to worship God in Christ.

In the rural areas of Central Pennsylvania, most of the small churches are actually blood family size churches. My first appointment to a United Methodist church and actually my last appointment was at a blood family church. Each church was in the southern rural part of York County, Pennsylvania.

Now let me start by saying that I am not condemning the blood family size church at all. I would have no problem offering this type of sermon to a blood family size church because what I want to do is emphasize that these types of churches have been in decline for several years and are going to phase out. There have been numerous blood family churches in the Susquehanna conference of the United Methodist Church that have closed over the 25+ years that I’ve been in ministry. Almost all the closings have been family size churches. I cannot say that they are all blood family size churches because many of them were gone before I even started my doctoral studies.

This is an alarm that I am sounding off to the blood family size church. I had a similar message for the two blood family size churches I was appointed to when I was ready to move on. The problem I found with the blood family size churches is that they refuse to accept people from outside of the biological family. The first blood family church I was at, I had an active young couple who said to me they were not related to each other. Luckily for me, a previous member of the church constructed a family tree dating back 100 years before he passed away. So, we looked at the family tree and we found that this husband and wife were cousins ninth removed. They had the same great great great great great great grandparents. They were shocked to say the least. They were married cousins.

Considering that these people were not mobile until the 1950s when they could afford cars, it’s understandable that you would marry your cousin. And again, I’m not saying is anything wrong with that but when the congregation is comprised of kissing cousins and they don’t allow other nonfamily members to enter the church, then the church is in trouble. This first church that I was at that I just described a little to you did not allow outsiders of the family in. I had a couple move up into the area from Baltimore and they came to the church one day. At the end of the church worship, the three matriarchs of the church grilled them for about 10 minutes to discover that they were from Baltimore and not part of the family. They also clarified that they were not welcome at the church because they were not part of the family. It hurt me because I had met this couple and encourage them to come to church since they only lived about ½ a mile away from the church and the nearest church beside us would’ve been 5 miles away. Boy, did I feel stupid and somewhat embarrassed for the church because they were a young couple who were about to create a family and that’s exactly who you want in your church if you wanted to grow.

The last church I was at was another blood family church. When I got there, over one third of the membership was over 90 years old. If this church was going to survive, it needed an infusion of fresh blood. However, the same problem occurred that the worshiping congregation would not allow nonfamily members to be in the church. They used a passive aggressive mode to get newcomers to leave. Right across the street from the church, a couple in their mid-20s moved in. They came over to the church. Not one person from the worshiping congregation would talk to them outside of my lovely bride and myself. Needless to say, when I went to visit them during that week they told me they would never be back because they had never been in a church that was so unfriendly. At an Administrative board meeting I brought up this problem and I was clearly told that the church did not want anybody there who was not part of the family.

There decrease in attendance and membership was because they were aging and dying off and their children and their grandchildren did not want to live in the rural areas of York County. The children and grandchildren moved to the suburbs or to the city of Philadelphia and they were not going to drive to the church on Sunday. There was one person who was at the church for over 35 years and was not a part of the biological family. I spoke to him about how he was treated by the congregation. He said that if he did not criticize or offer a new way of doing things; the people loved him. One day, he spoke up after all that time. Needless to tell you, two weeks later, he left the church.

Luke included his genealogy in his gospel to show us that Jesus was from the line of David. If you examine it very closely, you see that Luke’s genealogy differs from Matthew’s genealogy. We could spend a lot of time talking about why it’s different. But ultimately, Jesus was linked to David, Abraham, Adam, and ultimately to God. Messianic tradition says that Jesus would be part of the line of David. Indeed, Luke proves that to us.

For the initial Jews who became believers in Jesus and for the Gentile believers, this was very important. It was important enough that Luke investigated every part of the generations and could get all the names. However, the small blood family churches have taken the genealogy to an unhealthy extreme. Luke did not give us the genealogy so that the church can say only family members can belong. Luke gave us the genealogy to prove Jesus’ lineage.

If your church is acting in this way, and it will not allow people to become a part of the worshiping congregation, if they are not a part of the family, then you are writing an epitaph for the church. There are so many pressures on Christianity today that we cannot afford to allow an internal preference like being part of the biological family to stop us. If your church does not allow non-family members to enter, then the church is going to eventually shut down.

Another truth is that we are all connected to Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke about him being the vine and we are the branches. So, if your church wants to be a spiritually family oriented church, it has to learn that the family that Jesus spoke about is not a blood family but a spiritual family. We are connected to each other through our spirituality, not through biology. This is a lesson that even larger churches can learn from.

Every size church must be open to accepting new spiritual family members with open arms and grace. It doesn’t matter where they lived, who their parents were, what their race is, or even what religion they might convert from. Our churches must accept anyone who wants to worship and learn about Jesus Christ.

Some of you might say, “oh yeah, that’s not a problem for us.” The truth is, I was a Jewish convert to Christianity. I was the pastor of churches. And anti-Semitism was in every church I was at. I’m not saying everyone in the church, but I am saying there were enough people there that they would be passive aggressive and eventually convince me to leave when they wanted me out. This also is wrong, and it’s the same as rejecting someone who’s not part of the blood family.

From my studies and years in the pastorate, I want to say to the church stop doing things that are destroying yourself. We exist to make disciples for Jesus Christ and to educate them in the faith. We are to accept everyone who wants to learn about God through Christ. We must have semi-blind eyes in the sense that we will see nothing beyond a lost soul who is looking for God.

I know this sounds harsh, but it needs to be said because the world is constantly changing, and people are looking for the stability of God. Here we are, the church of Jesus Christ, and we need to be ready to serve all people who want to be part of our spiritual family. We need to actively go out and seek the pilgrims who are spiritually lost. The only question that we should ever ask a newcomer is, “how I can help you strengthen your relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?”