He was an older man in his mid to late 50's and it was a humbling thing to see when he began to cry brokenly.
"You're a pastor?" I asked softly prompting the man.
He nodded and wiped at his tears before responding, "Of the biggest church in town."
Words seemed to come to him then more easily once the ice had been broken by me.
"Like I said it's the biggest church in town. We have close to 600 in attendance every Sunday morning, even through the vacation prone summer months. Thirty percent of the congregation actually pays tithes, which is ten percent higher than most congregations can boast. I have more money to dispose to church-based charities and activities then I have demands for. I have three full-time pastors on staff besides myself. The church sponsors over 200 missionaries and we have five work-based church missionary groups that go to third world nations to help every year. Our vacation Bible school is the most attended in the entire county and for three counties around. We are, in short, the church to be."
The man stopped talking and the tears began in earnest again.
"It would seem that your church has been extremely blessed, but what does it lack that causes you to mourn so?" I asked.
The man's teary eyes rose to mine and bitterly he said, "My church members have lost the love of Christ from their hearts! Everything has become ritual and habit! There is no depth of meaning to their worship, if they truly worship God at all! I can't tell you how many months it's been in a church of 600 regular attendees that I've had a person come forward to experience the saving knowledge and redemptive power of Jesus Christ over their lives. I fear that it's already been over a year since the last! We have become useless to the Kingdom of God! Fit for nothing better than to be spit out on the ground and be done with, because we have failed in the commission that was given to us by not keeping the love of God within our own hearts!"
The man jabbed his own chest hard, "And I! I am the worst of all! I have steered this ship to the destination that it has become mired in! How many years have I been asleep at the helm only to finally now wake up? What can be done? I ask you, what can be done with people who have a form of holiness, but have no need for God in their hearts nor any desire to sacrifice of themselves to Him?"