The innocence of a child

We have been going through Vacation Bible School at my church this week. It has been an outstanding VBS all the way around. I'm amazed at how smoothly things have gone. We have one of the best bunches of kids that we've ever had.

Last night in our final assembly, I was having the kids repeat the memory verses. I had taped one of the verses onto my back and pretended that I didn't know it was on there. As my back was turned to the audience and I could hear those little voices yelling out the memory verse, I kept wondering how may of them would still remember them when they get to be my age? Will they continue learning about Jesus and doing things in their local church? Will they go down that wrong road that leads to destruction? Or will they lose their innocence and get hurt by a so-called "Christian" and give up on church?

When I was a kid I only saw or remembered the good things from church. I didn't ever realize some of the things that went on behind the scenes. The hard feelings, the chips on shoulders, the envy, the jealousy, the hatred, the lying, and all of the other un-Christian behavior that goes on. It wasn't until I was older and began getting involved in church that I saw those ugly things come to surface. I'll never forget the time when I was employed at a local church as their custodian. I was not a member there and I didn't attend services there, I was just an employee. One morning I was inside of my custodian's closet doing an inventory of supplies when the room beside of the closet began to fill up with people. I recognized the voices of the deacons and trustees of the church. I didn't want to fling open my door and cause anyone to have a heart attack or anything so I just sat inside of my closet to wait for them to leave. Little did I know that they were having an impromptu meeting about getting rid of their pastor! This was no small church mind you, they had around 500 in attendance on Sunday mornings and the pastor's salary was $64,000 a year! I heard some of the awfullest things being said in that meeting. My, how they seemed to hate their pastor. As they were ripping their pastor to shreds, I heard the side door of the church open (it had a little buzzer on it that would buzz when opened) and I could hear the people in the room quickly disperse. What I heard next was the clincher. As the pastor walked by the room I heard one of the deacons that had just been in the meeting ripping the pastor apart, greeting the pastor like he was his best friend in the whole entire world. The pastor never had a clue that only seconds before, this same guy was plotting his demise.

My mother also tells of a story that my grandfather, Rev. Edd Spencer, used to tell. He was pastoring a church and one time they had a service where members would pin flowers onto the clothes of people that they loved. My grandfather said he was covered from head to toe with flowers that day. He said that it wasn't a month later that those same people wanted to remove the flowers and stab the pins into him instead!

It is really sad that we, as confessed Christians, behave so badly. I have been involved with some ugly stuff in my years of church work. Stuff that could have been avoided and handled so much better. I think it boils down to pride, which is one of the biggest downfalls of the human race. If we all really loved our neighbor like the Bible says that we should, we could avoid so much misery and heartache. Oh to have the innocence of a child again...