Articles
A MIssing Member
A number of years ago I read the following story.
A 73-year-old man was pinned beneath his farm tractor for four days and nights in a driving rain and freezing temperatures. Concerned friends finally went to see about him, apparently just in time. The man survived the ordeal although he lost a leg below the knee.
Although the report centered upon the amazing fact that after being pinned beneath a tractor for four days and nights he survived, a more amazing fact is what caused his friends to go see about him. What caused these people to do so? He had missed “prayer meeting.” That’s all. He missed one service.
There are two possible suppositions we could make about this incident.
First, we could suppose this man was so regular in his attendance that everyone knew if he was not there something had to be seriously wrong. A question: what if you had been the one pinned under the tractor? Would your absence have been noticed? Or, are you so irregular in attendance that people might well assume you decided to sleep in or go to a ball game? How many services have you missed in the last three months? Could you honestly classify yourself as a faithful, regular worshiper of God?
The other possibility is this: we could assume that the people in this man’s congregation had such a concern for souls that when anyone, no matter how regular or irregular, missed a service, they went to see about him.
That reminds me of a comment from the 19th century preacher J. W. McGarvey in his excellent little book The Eldership. Reflecting on Jesus’ illustration of a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to go in search of a lost one, brother McGarvey wondered: “If a congregation were assembled on the Lord’s day for worship, and the Elders, upon looking over their faces, were to miss one, and ascertain that he was absent in some gay company, or at home in an ill humor, or about to start out for the day on a pleasure excursion, would they be pressing the teaching of this parable too far, should one of them immediately leave the house of God, and go to bring in that person? How much joy it would create among the saints on earth, and among the angels in heaven, if such a thing were done successfully and often! Should anyone, however, be unwilling to press the analogy to this extent, he must still admit that the nearest possible approach to this degree of vigilance can alone meet fully the demands of the shepherd’s duty” (pp. 34-35).
