But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. —Revelation 2:4–5
Jason Sloboda, DDiv, pushed the squeaking old church door back on its hinges. He stumbled backwards as the rank, musty air hit him. It was worse even than he had expected.
He stepped inside, disturbing the dust of decades. Cobwebs hung thickly in the corners and paint was peeling from the walls. An old bulletin, coated in idle doodles, lay moldering on the vestry carpet.
Jason took it all in, seeing potential instead of problems. Like a soldier reclaiming territory, he felt half-pierced by the neglected building, once a fortress of the kingdom of heaven—and half-triumphant to know that it was his now, to rebuild for his King.
He pushed on through to the sanctuary, coughing on the unwholesome air. By the dim light shining through dirt-encrusted windows he saw first the rows of pews, his eye traveling slowly up the nave as his imagination peopled the seats with worshiping congregants. Next the spacious vaulted roof drew his attention, thrilling him with magnificence. As his eyes adjusted and he paced thoughtfully down the aisle, he saw the faint outlines left where a wooden cross had once hung, directly behind the worn carpet spot where the pulpit once stood. Now, nothing but a few wires and a broken music stand lay on the platform. Again Jason had the sensation of taking back a well-worn battlefield.
“Praise God, this building will never hear a liberal sermon or a rock concert again—not under my watch,” he thought.
He wandered on through the building, his mental to-do list lengthening rapidly. Fortunately, he already had a dedicated congregation, as thrilled as he was that good gospel preaching would be heard again at the old Fifth Avenue building. Jason assigned tasks as he went—“Elder Parton can lay the new carpets, Tim will take a look at the air conditioning. I’ll get Mrs. Landing’s advice on the decor, she has quite an eye. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Marrow for something too or she’ll feel left out… she could distribute hymn books to each pew. I don’t see how she could mess that up.”
By now Jason had reached the pastor’s office. His heart rate picked up a bit as he realized he was about to enter the room where he’d spend the best hours of his life, the room where he’d pour his heart into study and pour his heart out to prayer.
The door yielded softly to his touch.
Jason walked into the room, rich with the smells of paper and ink. His searching hand felt cautiously behind the door for a switch. When he flipped it, light shone weirdly across the floor from behind a stack of boxes, illuminating a room that looked like the gutted remains of a storage garage.
The light came from a toppled lampstand, lying behind sealed boxes of cheap bibles. Jason set it upright and looked around the room. Old church records open on the desks, half-empty bookshelves, and a warm coat of dust on top of everything.
He walked forward, put two fingers on the top documents. Session minutes, 1963. Resolution to expand the worship team and give Miles Keller the role of worship director. Elder Dobb moves that Miles be examined by the session. No second. Elder Dobb objects that Miles Keller is weak on the resurrection. Consensus is that Miles’ musical talents will attract youth.
Jason shrugged a bit contemptuously, feeling he’d read enough. Praise God, there were no Miles Kellers in his church and lots of Elder Dobbs.
An old tape recorder, high on a back shelf, caught his eye. The plug lay invitingly draped across the top, and with a sudden curiosity to know if tech this old and this untechy might still work, he pulled it from the shelf, crawled under the desk, and hunted for an outlet.
The shuddering, mechanical sound of tape recording broke the room’s lifeless silence and brought back old, old memories. A slow, breathy voice said, “You could say we found a shortcut, the fast, efficient, the modern way. What we decided that day, we have a message that needs to be heard, we’ll do what we have to do to get that message heard. The universal fatherhood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, is more important than whether us old fogies like the music. Because of that decision there are more folks here in our church and more people going to heaven today.
“Change is scary, even for me. I worried about sticking to old traditional beliefs and the old prayer ways. I made an idol out of the old truth and dogmatism. Maybe we’d lose something if we left the worn out ways behind. But we’ve gained everything—more folks, more love, more tolerance, more unity, more variety, more of a feel of God here in this place in the deep warmth of our hearts and the eternal bounds of our commitment.
“For those of you still sitting here, who haven’t yet come to grips with our new reality, I want to assure you it can be done. There have been those fighting progress tooth and nail, swearing that never on their watch will liberalism take over First Pres. Let go, open up, free your minds from the old superstitions, the old feel that God condemns sin. Let go of your constant sense of unworthiness and feel Love. Love! It should bring us all together. It’s the shortcut that takes us to God.”
The recording died in a cough of reeling tape.
Jason looked around again at the dead old room, a clutching fear nagging him as he saw this building, the broken shell of what had once been a temple of the living God. With startling and terrifying clearness, he saw that the same thing could happen again—even to him. Even to him, all the while he patted himself on the back like a Pharisee and thanked God that his church was different…
Even to him, if he focused on man. If he lost his first love. If he forgot to pray.
If he took a shortcut past the gospel.
Geneva D 
What do you think?