We attended a prospective members class at a local church. They said the church isn’t a cruise ship but a battle ship. I have used that analogy myself and I like the analogy. When I say it, I mean that we are engaged in a battle to expand God’s kingdom by the spread of the gospel and teaching the nations to obey all that Christ commands (Matt. 28:18-20). How the church used the analogy has been bugging me and it took me a couple weeks to figure out why.
The guy used the analogy to say that we are expected to contribute to the church by volunteering in various roles. We’re not supposed to come here to be served. I appreciate it as far as that goes. A battleship has janitors and cooks that never fire a gun or steer the ship, and I understand that some people serve in ways that may not be directly engaging in battle. But in the church’s analogy, they don’t actually mean anything by being a battle ship. They just mean it’s not a cruise ship where people come to be served. Their battleship never leaves port to fight any battles. Their battleship is always parked at the dock and the sailors show up on Sunday morning and then go home.
They do a fair job of telling people that they are to go out and spread the gospel, but there is no organization to that. It’s all about Sunday morning. I don’t think Sunday morning is about battling at all. Everyone comes and gets coffee and listens to the sermon and maybe they chit chat a little.
If there is any analogy you want to use only for Sunday morning assembly, it that it is supposed to be a hospital for the wounded to come and receive comfort. But that would be because we are out battling all week and these battles lead to wounds. Jesus offers healing through fellowship with other Christians, eating together and the Lord’s supper in the midst of that meal.
In order to use the battleship analogy, you need to get the ship out of port and into battle. There is no shortage of battles to be fought that lend themselves to being fought by a team. The main one is abortion. We also need to get as many kids out of public school as possible. We need to preach the gospel. I’m sure there are plenty of other good ideas. Wouldn’t it have been nice if there were churches in any real battles. They like to talk about discipleship, but the best kind of discipleship would be on-the-job training.
