No One Else To Minister To

When I think about church I have a strong image in my mind of plants growing up in the cracks on the sidewalk.

I've referred to this before It is always useful to remember that God is the God of the Living. If your organization is no longer oriented to life, well, life can grow up in the cracks.

I was thinking about what it would have been like for a pastor in Christendom if the bulk of his parishoners just stopped going to church. If children went unbaptized, etc...

It would be most unlikely, mainly because the boss- the local lord- probably doesn't want it to happen, unless he is debauched in some way or something.

But, I think the biggest issue would be that the pastor would have no one else to minister to. In other words, rather than learning the latest immigrant language and trying to build a flock out of who ever is new and allegedly more devout than the originals, he'd be stuck attempting to win back his original flock.

No imaginary move forward. Just what I imagine is probably some pretty painful work. It is easier to learn Spanish, liberation theology and join the revolution. The revolution, of course, keeps eating people and destroying lives- as we can see from the alien like antifa/black bloc types. But you can pretend that isn't part of the game you are playing, especially if they show up and vandalize your church from time to time.

It seems to me our minds want to reject the failure of our institutions. They no longer do what they are supposed to. The terminal stage of bureaucratic rule. But we still want to believe they work.