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Nehemiah as the American Church

One Another Project church health, church leadership American, exiles, Nehemiah, Privilege, Rebuilding, Refocus, Revival, sojourners, vision

This is the first in a series of posts from my current study of Nehemiah as a symbol of what the American church could be in these difficult and troubling times. I am hoping and praying the Lord will incline your heart to make this journey with me over the next several weeks, wherever it takes us.

In those days I was the king’s cup-bearer. Nehemiah 1:11

Exiles in a Land Not Our Home

As Christ followers, we are all “sojourners, exiles, strangers in a foreign land” (1 Peter 2:11, Hebrews 11:13, Philippians 2:20). You probably know the metaphor. Because our citizenship, as followers of Jesus, is in Heaven, our first and foremost identity is with Christ. But we are called to live, for now, in this physical world. We are to be “salt and light” in this world which is not our own (Matthew 5:13-14). Like the Hebrew exiles in Babylon, we are to “work for the peace and prosperity of the city” where we are (Jeremiah 29:7). In short, as the church in America, this is not our home. But we are to minister and meet its needs nonetheless. Nehemiah was one of those exiles. He was actually the third, fourth or even fifth generation born in exile. Like all of us in the church today, he knew no other circumstance but to be an exile. Just as was true for his parents, grandparents and great grandparents, this foreign land was the only home he had ever known. It was not his culture and these were not his people. He did not choose this life. It was thrust upon him. Oh, and by the way, he was the cupbearer to the king.

Exiles Living Comfortable Lives

That very last line of Nehemiah 1 is a bit of a twist in the story. You see, as the king’s cupbearer, he would have been one of the most trusted people in the entire palace. He lived with the king, he dined with the king. Like Joseph and Daniel and Esther before him, the “exile” he inherited came with a twist of fate which actually made his life very, very bearable. He wanted for nothing and lived and worked among the wealthiest leaders in the known world. In today’s parlance: he was unbelievably privileged. And so it is with the American church. We live in perhaps the most prosperous country in the world. That is not, of course, to say that every church in America is materially prosperous. The truth is, a pretty small percentage of the churches in our country are what we have come to call “mega-churches”. But, by the world’s standards of wealth and privilege, the majority of our churches live so far above the poverty line we can barely look back and even see that line. In short, by the world’s standards, we (like Nehemiah) are wealthy and powerful and influential and we are living relatively comfortable lives.

Revival, Refocus, Rebuilding

Nehemiah experienced what we might call a life-changing refocus. He received a new vision, a new assignment from God. It changed his life (and the nation of Israel). This calling on his life caused him to leave his life of luxury and dive headfirst into a life of hardship and conflict. This new assignment would require rolling up his sleeves and doing a kind of work (and exhibiting a level of leadership) he had never before done. He had to literally stop doing what he had always done in order to get results he had never before gotten. Don’t we in the American church need a similar revival? Don’t we need a refocusing and a new vision for how we engage with this broken world? Shouldn’t we consider letting go of some of our privilege in order to pursue what God expects of us? Shouldn’t we refocus on what it means to operate under the power of God rather than under the powers of this world? Like Nehemiah, don’t we have some rebuilding to do? I’m looking forward to what Nehemiah’s story has to say to the American church. Won’t you come with me on this journey?

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