The Visitor
The church board had a visitor
who had but one request.
They looked him over carefully:
they didn't know their guest.
The face they didn't recognize,
a member he was not.
His clothes were kind of dirty, though.
"He must be poor!" they thought.
The visitor began to speak:
"I've something now to say --
The church, you know, is where one goes
to worship and to pray.
But there is more that it should do:
your building is God's tool
To help the poor and serve the world,
or even house a school!
Throughout the week, you keep it closed;
it's hardly used at all!
But I've got something everyday
for which to use your hall!"
And when he told them what it was
they all looked rather tense.
The thing that worried them the most
was all of the expense.
And then they listed other things:
the dirt and all the wear.
They doubted that their edifice
was something they should share.
"We're really sorry, but you know,
our church is in a bind.
Right now our church needs every cent
our offering plates can find!
Our members, they are getting old,
the youth have gone away.
We have to keep our church for us
to worship and to pray."
The visitor got up to leave,
and as he left he said,
"My friends, you'll have to sacrifice
to rise up from the dead.
You've closed your church to life, itself,
while all the world is crying.
And that's the reason that your church
has all this time been dying!"
The church board had a visitor,
they should have been quite awed.
Too bad they didn't know his name
was Christ, the Son of God. |
