Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct/77

Contributor - James C. Eelman

Title - A Salute to a Great Church

Topic - Maitland Community Reformed Church

Although the word "great" suffers from excessive use by politicians and spokesmen for popular religion, I can find no better word to describe the character of the Maitland Community Reformed Church of Maitland, Ontario. It is a great church.

After serving this congregation for three and a half years, illness forced me into an early retirement. Not only was it the shortest pastorate in my ministry, it was also the smallest congregation that I have served. No doubt only a very few people in our denomination ever heard of the place. By modern standards and ecclesiastical criteria, by statistics and program output this congregation would not have earned a place among the "great Churches" once written up in a leading Christian periodical. Our denominational leaders might even consider it a "problem church", for like the first church in Jerusalem, it has been in need of financial aid to keep its doors open. Of what significance is a small congregation of thirty-nine families among the so-called "successful" and "growing" churches of our denomination? Like the few loaves and fishes, of the little boy seemed impossible to feed a multitude, we too often consider a small church of little importance to minister in a world that puts a premium upon bigness and numbers.

"We are looking forward to reading your article. At the last congregational meeting we discussed the future of the Maitland church at length. We do not think that we are such a great church, and we fall short in many ways. We decided, however, that we should remain and with God's help look to the future. The fact that we are small makes it difficult. Not that a bigger church is necessarily a better witnessing church."

To say that the Maitland congregation is "great" does not mean that it is a church without problems, or a people without human faults and failings. If greatness means faultless, this church is not great. I discovered that its greatness lies rather in the humble confession that it does not consider itself great. When I wrote the vice-president of their consistory that I was thinking about writing this article, he wrote:

A church that desires to witness solely to the greatness of God, and has a humble opinion of itself, truly participates in the greatness of the Lord. We so readily forget that the Lord is pleased to use the weak and the small to confound the strong and the mighty.

Jacques Ellul emphasizes this truth in his book The Ethics of Freedom. "God chooses the most feeble, ill-equipped, and humble man and makes him an instrument of his own work." The same is true of a congregation, as the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth . . ." Yet it pleased God to use these humble believers, "so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

The membership of the Maitland church consists mainly of Dutch immigrants who settled in the area after World War II. It is simply amazing how these people who came from different backgrounds, geographical areas and church affiliations have been formed into a united congregation. As I worked with these people, I discovered that they were not so much an organization as a living organism. They firmly acknowledged the Reformed doctrine that the channels through which the life of God comes to them are the Word of God and the Sacraments. Consequently I found them most receptive to the preaching of the Word. Like the Thessalonians they received the word of God and "accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word of God . . ." They believed that their minister was first of all a servant of the Word, not of the wishes of the people.

More young people and children attended the services with their parents than I have seen in most of the churches in our denomination. The entire church community formed a kind of partnership, a true communion of saints, mutually strengthening one another's faith in Christ, helping each other in times of sorrow and sickness, confirming one another in the enjoyment of God's heavenly and earthly gifts, and in taking God so seriously that they did not take themselves too seriously.

The practice of daily devotions and family worship in the homes no doubt helped to make their corporate worship on Sunday more meaningful. No congregation sang the hymns with more spirit and praise to God. Without either choir or song leader the congregation sang from the heart unto the Lord.

In spite of its own financial needs and a limited income, the congregation did not forget its denominational mission responsibility. During my pastorate the consistory decided to take a special missionary offering at the close of every communion service. In gratitude for the Bread of Life the people pledged themselves to distribute that bread to the ends of the earth. The response was greater than our expectations.

For these and other reasons too numerous to mention, I salute a great church in the name of our Lord, hoping and praying that other small churches may also take courage and recognize greatness for what it truly is, faithfulness, loyalty, dependability, and simple trust in the Lord.

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