In Nantucket, Massachusetts there’s a museum devoted to a volunteer organization, formed centuries ago called the Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum. Back then Nantucket was the center of the whaling industry and in those days travel by sea was extremely dangerous. Given that storms in the Atlantic quickly come and go, and given the treacherous coastline of Massachusetts, where many lives would be lost within a mile of the shore, a group of volunteers decided to go into the lifesaving business. It wasn’t their job — they had other jobs – but, as volunteers, they banded together to create The Massachusetts Humane Society. They built these little huts along the shoreline and they called them Huts Of Refuge. In fact, there are still a few of these huts in existence today.
These volunteers watched the seas, watched the water; all the time looking for people in distress, looking for ships to go down. Looking for somebody; anybody that needed to be rescued. Whenever a ship went down, word went out. Signal flares were lit, and everyone would do everything that they could to save the ship, and those aboard. They didn’t do it for money, they didn’t do it for recognition. They did it because they realized that there is something precious and valuable about life, about human life. To remind them what was at stake, they adopted a motto: “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come in.” Now that’s a recruiting slogan, right? Now, that would not motivate me, yet that was the Humane Society’s motto!
However, over time something interesting began to happen. The US Coast Guard began to take over the task of lifesaving. For a period the US Coast Guard and the Lifesaving Society would work side by side. But, eventually the volunteers began to think “well they’re the professionals, let them do it,” so they kind of gave up the lifesaving business. And, over time volunteers stopped manning their little huts; they stopped searching the coastline for sinking ships; they stopped sending teams to rescue drowning people.
But it is interesting. They couldn’t bring themselves to disband, so the Lifesaving Society still exists today. They meet every once in a while in Boston, and have dinners and sometimes hand out awards for those that did community service. They enjoy each other’s company, and have great fellowship together. They just are not in the lifesaving business anymore. They meet, they sponsor programs, they get together, but they don’t have the thrill of risking their lives to save some else.
It happens all the time, it doesn’t happen in a day, or a month, or a year – but over time a church forgets that it’s in the life saving business. And it usually doesn’t disband, at least not right away. People still meet, they still enjoy each others company, they have good fellowship, they enjoy dinners together, they have services and programs. They may even be involved in some community activities together. But, they don’t send out people as teams anymore for going out and saving lives. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s out scouring the neighborhoods. They forget that Jesus put his efforts into rescuing or lifesaving. They have buildings, budgets, staffs and meetings. They are just not in the lifesaving business anymore. It can happen to a church, it can happen to a small group, it can happen to a person. Whether or not we stay in the lifesaving business depends upon us. It depends upon the church of Jesus Christ!
Jesus was in the lifesaving business. He desired to not only build a community, but to reach a community. He shared this desire very clearly in the Upper Room discourse, when he said, “by this all men will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another, so that the world may know Him who sent me” (John 17:23). The church is in the lifesaving business. We are a hut of refuge, and the goal of the church is to have little huts small groups all over their communities. Huts of people who do life together, who share what they have in common – by serving one another, by speaking truth to one another, by comforting one another, by encouraging one another, by praying for one another – so that the world might believe. God designed us for community. He called us to community, and he has commissioned us to reach a community.
