I stood at the front of the church and watched as the congregation was led in a full slate of old hymns and familiar gospel songs. Nothing rising from us that morning had been composed since the 1950s. My grandparents would have been right at home there.

It was the menu we are told grey-haired people (like myself) say they want from a worship leader.

Personally, I thought it was one boring service.

I grew up on those hymns, and like most veteran church-goers in that church, knew them “by heart.” I sang as lustily as I could manage while endeavoring to save voice enough to preach. But in no way did I find that song service meaningful, worshipful, or enjoyable.

The problem was the familiarity of it all. I could sing those hymns in my sleep (and probably have). My mind went on vacation while my mouth sang them. And that is precisely why singing them regularly is a bad idea.

“O, sing unto the Lord a new song!”

Anyone who has read his Bible much has run across that line before. To make sure we could not miss it, the Lord sprinkled throughout His Word. It can be found in Psalms 33:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1, and in Isaiah 42:10.

In Psalm 40:3, David testifies that after the Lord lifted him from the miry clay and gave him firm footing, “He put a new song in my mouth.”

We’re told in the last book of the Bible, that in Heaven “they sang a new song” (Revelation 5:9 and 14:3).

Anyone see a pattern here?

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The books on how to build a healthy church are flying off the printing presses these days. Seminaries are holding conferences and consultants are finding fertile fields for their congregational therapies.

I do not have a set program on restoring the health of a church so much as a heavy burden for it.

I’ve served all kinds of churches and been used of the Lord to restore the health of at least two. As we all surely know, our Lord does not like to waste experience.

I’ve seen the damage sick churches can inflict in a community and want no more of it ever again. An unhealthy church can destroy the reputation of Jesus Christ throughout its area of influence. An unhealthy church perpetuates itself by bringing up a new generation of wrong-headed members who spread their poisons to other congregations.

An unhealthy church turns people against the truth and inoculates them against the   ministries of a healthy, normal church.

An unhealthy church sucks the life out of missions by cutting off its support of missionaries in order to keep themselves afloat to the bitter end.

A pastorless church asked me to come for a “renewal weekend.” Now, that term can mean anything, but the leadership was clear on what they had in mind.

They said, “We are not inviting the community to this. They’re certainly welcome, but we’re not ready to have a harvest time. We need to get ourselves straight.”

They sent a number of subjects such as unity, health, effective evangelism, and leadership in order to direct my planning.

Rather than the sanctuary, we would hold all except the Sunday morning session around tables in the fellowship hall. They would serve lunch at noon and refreshments in the evening. The approach would be strictly informal.

We met twice a day, at noon and at 6:30 pm, for three days, Thursday through Saturday, and concluded with the Sunday morning worship service.

Here is the layout of the seven sessions.

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I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.  Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words.  And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to do so, putting them out of the church.  III John 9-10.

In his book of 1,502 stories and illustrations (The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart), Chuck Swindoll has this:

A. T. Robertson, a fine, reliable Baptist scholar of years ago, taught for many years at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.  When he began to write on books of the Bible, he chose on one occasion the Book of 3 John, which talks about Diotrephes.  Diotrephes was a man who became a self-appointed boss of a church. And over a period of time, he was the one that excommunicated certain people and he screened whatever was done in the church.  As the self-appointed leader, he wouldn’t even let John come to speak as a representative of Christ.  So, John wrote a letter and reproved him.

In writing about Diotrephes, A. T. Robertson said this: ‘Some forty years ago I wrote an article about Diotrephes for a denominational paper. The editor told me that twenty-five deacons stopped (taking) the paper to show their resentment against being personally attacked in the paper.’  

We can be thankful for this church boss of the first century.  Had we not known the early church had to deal with church tyrants masquerading as agents of Christ and brutalizing God’s people, we would have thought things had gone seriously downhill in our day.  But this cancer has been with us from the first. This, incidentally, is why we give thanks the church at Corinth, Greece, had so much trouble.  In First Corinthians, when Paul addresses these problems he establishes guidelines and sets up markers we’ve used ever since. Had the early Christians experienced no difficulties, we would have none of this.

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