A large church which I won't name held a conference for other churches, large and small.
They had some kind of a parade during this conference in which all the groups in the church which ran a ministry or programme walked across the stage, sometimes in fancy dress and someone said what they did, or a video clip was shown explaining what their ministry was. The church had about 130 'ministries' to groups within their church or city.
It was very impressive. I noticed however that there was nothing specifically aimed at the elderly (surely one of the most marginalised and despised groups in our society) or at Muslims (which made up about 1/3rd of this city's population), which I thought was a glaring omission.
The parade ended with a firework display outside, on the 'campus' of their big church.
I felt uneasy and I couldn't think why. Was I jealous? Joyless? Why wasn't I shouting Hallelujah?
Well, one thing was this. In Matthew 6:3 it says:
When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
So what is lesson 2? Nothing clear, apart from the fact that churches can be very proud of their good works and flagship 'ministries' and we need to be careful.
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