A Church Recovers From Fire



The good news is that the winds have died down and the firefighters are better able to get a handle on the many fires raging across Southern California. The other good news is that the estimated number of displaced persons is much lower than the earlier estimate of a million. It's still rather warm but the conditions are improving.

One of the stories of this fire has focused on Malibu Presbyterian Church, a congregation my wife attended while a Pepperdine student back in the late 1970s. It was one of the first buildings to go, and as a pastor I know how important the building is to the life of a congregation. Yes, it's the people and not the building, but as is true here, the building has its own life. There are mementos that are irreplaceable, records lost, pictures, resources, books, of all kinds. But the good news in this is the spirit of the congregation to reemerge like a phoenix from the fire, more committed than ever to mission and outreach.


The LA Times quotes UCLA Religion professor -- a former professor of mine while in seminary, Scott Bartchy:
"

The strength of any church is the sense of mutual support and common mission," said S. Scott Bartchy, director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Religion.

"If anything, when the building is lost for any reason, that sense of mutuality and common purpose is not at all weakened. Rather . . . adversity tends to strengthen those values," he said.

And so it is, in spite of the importance of the building and all that it holds, it is the people after all, their support of one another and the witness they bring to the community, that is the essence of the church.
So, we watch the recovery. Yes, the Malibu church is affluent, but as the story notes, they are planning to keep their commitment to give a half a million to an outreach ministry in urban LA. May we take heart in their example!

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