Originally Posted by NLYP
By Ruth Ann KerrNow that we have the Tenneys on TBN to discuss, I suppose the discussion over conscientious scruples will go on the back burner for now. No comments in this missive on either topic.
But, I do want to speak in favor of Apostolics taking to the tube for a reason I have yet to see mentioned as a ministry to the sick and the shut-in.
However, I realize, that just as Madison Avenue looks at the American spending pool as hip and 18-30, so do some Apostolics validate/endorse/approve ministry only if it extends to those who are able bodied and still young enough to march for missions, run aisles, and help with the annual peanut brittle event or Sheaves for Christ rock-a-thon.
My 80+ year-old mother passed away in 2001 and she had, as long as physically able, attended church “every time the doors were opened” for nearly 60 years. Bed-ridden from cancer several months before her demise, TV became more important to her than ever. It was her only link to church services, to any corporate move of God at all.
My saint of a father and unchurched family members and I collectively say “Thank God!” for T. D. Jakes and a handful of P.A.W. churches who preached doctrinally-sound sermons and sang and worshipped each week. Mom prayed along with them, said “Amen” during the preaching, and tapped her fingers to and sang along with the music.
Now the argument against being on TV for this purpose would be that our churches should have nursing home ministries and outreaches to the elderly and shut-in. Would that were the case! So few Apostolic churches have such ministries/outreaches in place. As a body, we don’t even seem to be able to erect just one nursing/retirement home anywhere.
For my mom, requests to her church of 50+ years elicited less-than-sporadic phone calls and even fewer visits (until the last two weeks of her life). Of course, faithful saint that she was, her tithing checks were mailed right on time each month. No one came with Communion, no one came with singing, no one came with Bible lessons or even “sermonettes.” I see the same turn of events taking place now with my 91-year-old father who is too ill to make the trip to church. His only links with a church body are the same ones available to my mother. Elderly people, I have learned, are very understanding, you see, of how busy their church leadership/family is.
Folks may not want to ask Dad whether we should use TV or not he’ll quickly tell you in great detail about the advent of “crystal radios” and how every sermon warned against that wicked tool of the Anti-Christ. He may not be able to remember what he had for lunch today, but just ask him to relate how “the Church” has changed its collective mind about many things through the years and you’ll get vivid detail, because “the Church” has been his life.
When the UPCI, or any other Oneness organization for that matter, is ready to step up to the proverbial plate and put as much emphasis on meeting needs of church-members and the community at large as it puts on how many more conferences we can schedule this year or how many more books we can write about how people should look, perhaps even our seniors and other shut-ins can still feel like they really are part of a body of believers.
For just a few minutes…a few short minutes…can we refrain from standing in front of a mirror, or holding the mirror up to someone else, and take a really honest look at the needs of the world around us, even the needs of those who support us, put food on our tables, pay our way to General Conference, and send our children to private schools? I realize that, for many, “image is everything,” but let’s be real, folks image isn’t as much to Jesus as it is to us.
As a holder of a General License with the UPCI, I am committed now more than ever to preaching the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. And, after exhausting every sermon available on the Mighty God in Christ, love and compassion for the lost, redemption, reconciliation, and remission of sin, I’ll surely have ample time to preach against the evils of TV and other mass media and will do just that. I promise. Cross my heart.
Yet right now, at this particular intersection of time and opportunity, I simply want to be sure that every hungry heart I know young, old, “saved” or not has the invitation to become acquainted with the love and tender mercies of Jesus Christ. And that every one I encounter knows that he or she is loved and cared for by the Body of Christ (us).
Wasn’t it during the Russian revolution, as people marched in the streets and their country was falling apart, that the Russian Orthodox church leaders were behind closed doors trying to decide what color buttons to sew on their robes and whether or not to use a napkin with the communion chalice?
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
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