In an earlier post, expressing some frustration with the state of evangelicalism, I asked where to find the “real thing.” This morning I was humbled to receive an e-mail concerning some family acquaintances who had serious trouble with the birth of their new baby. The mother nearly died and the baby was born prematurely. In the e-mail, these folks were expressing heartfelt thanks to many people who had been praying for them, sending flowers, and offering assistance, including their friends, friends of friends, and others who hardly knew them. This, it struck me, is the “real thing.” It’s not so much the recovery the mom and baby are making — although that seems to be remarkable and perhaps even “miraculous” in a sense — it’s the way the Christian community, the Church with a capital “C”, rallied to their side.
If you’ve ever experienced that kind of love in a time of personal crisis — and I have, in a major health crisis of my own a few years ago — and if you’ve ever seen and felt God work to bring blessing through such a time — and I have — you know that all the problems and shortcomings of your local church (with a small “c”) and all of our theological debates pale in significance. That’s the “real thing.”