The Decline of the Church (And Other Stuff Church People Don't Like Talking About)

By Kelvin Bueckert

This is a collection of three books.
Book 1. The Decline of the Church. What about Christians and racism? Doesn't God want ya'll ta be rich and famous? Don't all those Holy books teach basically the same thing? Why are Christians so mean? Who was Jesus really? What is the point of the Church anyway? All these questions and more are explored in this short but hard-hitting collection of essays, stories, and poems.
Book 2. Lessons Learned in the Mourning. When the valley is darker than it has ever been...when we lose someone we loved, what can we learn? Lessons Learned in the Mourning explores that question. Born from personal experiences, this book dives deep into the issues of loss, yet it also finds hope there.
Book 3. Beauty in a Scorched Land. A journey of stories, pictures, and reflections inspired by time spent working at a medical mission in Africa. What is the place of a Christian in a world full of poverty and struggle? This is a question that the authors have wrestled with and they share their reflections here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelvin Bueckert
• Release date: Apr 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393738053

Kelvin Bueckert

Kelvin is a diverse writer who has written drama, humor, suspense, poetry, and pretty much, whatever he feels like writing. His writings have been featured in many different and diverse places such as The Pedestal Magazine, Horizon Magazine, The Fifth Dimension, Writer Online, The Martian Wave, Lyrica Webzine of Romantic Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Alephion, Washing the Color of Water Golden, and many others. As an actor, producer, writer and director Kelvin has been involved with many productions. So, if you have a show in the works, why not contact him? Awards 2nd Place in a Canada Post Essay Contest Honorable Mention in the Unscrambled Eggs poetry contest. Runner up in Breakaway Magazine's Hey World essay contest. 4th Place in the Spinetinglers contest. Outstanding Community Achievement as part of the Austin Manitoba 150th Anniversary celebrations. Garageband, song of the day. Compo10 song contest winner  

Book preview

Kelvin Bueckert

The Decline of the Church (And Other Stuff Church People Don’t Like to Talk About)

Copyright © 2022 by Kelvin Bueckert

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Kelvin Bueckert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Kelvin Bueckert has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Contents

Introduction

1. Book 1. The Decline of the Church

2. Resting in the Lord

3. The Problem of Evil

4. The Quest

5. The Problem of Evil 2

6. The Pilgrim and His Lack of Progress

7. The Hypocrite’s Lament

8. Refugees

9. Personal Demons

10. The Pharisee

11. A Letter to a Racist

12. The Forgotten Voice

13. The Radical Story of Christmas

14. How Long Must We Wait?

15. The Crazy Preacher

16. Reality vs Fantasy

17. Truth

18. Tradition and the Church

19. Feasting With Sinners

20. Why Are Christians So Mean?

21. Don’t all Them Holy Books Teach the Same Thing?

22. Thoughts for Troubled Times

23. Fear

24. Faith

25. Jesus vs the Dude on the T.V. !

26. Looking Good

27. What is the Gospel?

28. Looking for Jesus

29. Hidden Treasures

30. While the Boss is Away

31. Church Politics: Illustrated

32. Politics and the Christian

33. Narcissists vs The Will of God

34. Mental Illness and the Stigma of it

35. The Decline and Fall of the Church

36. Darkness Before Dawn

37. A Lesson in Pain

38. The Cycle of Hurting and Being Hurt

39. 7-Reasons for Hope

40. Lemme Tell Ya Something Bout All Them TV Preachers

41. Thankfulness

42. Ben

43. They Came in Peace, We Wanted war

44. Restart

45. Staring at the Sky

46. Pieces

47. Book II: Lessons Learned in the Mourning

48. Kelvinator 1

49. Father

50. Father’s Day

51. A View From the Mountain

52. Peace

53. Aunt

54. Grandfather (1)

55. Hope

56. Differences

57. Seeds

58. Kelvinator (2)

59. Grandfather (2)

60. A Flower in the Garden of the King

61. Grandfather (3)

62. Visions

63. Grief

64. Golden

65. Kelvinator (3)

66. Return

67. Drive

68. Book III: Beauty in a Scorched Land

69. A Feast

70. A Pose

71. At the Water’s Edge

72. Ants in Our Pants

73. A Splash of Beauty

74. Up Close and Personal

75. War Stories

76. A Sign

77. Civilization

78. A Memorable Visit

79. All’s Well That Ends Well

80. The Forgotten Voice

81. Thoughts From Charlene

82. Reuben’s Story

83. Poverty Factsheet

84. Thoughts From Janice

85. Thoughts From Kelvin

86. Beauty in a Scorched Land

87. Heading Out

88. Heading Home

89. Additional Thoughts

90. The Authors

91. The Last Word

Stories From Our Town

Marilyn’s Meditations

The Heart of the Matter

Divine Signature

Introduction

What have I got myself into?

I’m sure that question is burning in your mind. That is good. That means you are thinking and thinking is exactly what this collection of blog posts is intended to provoke.

I write a post for my blog at least once a week, so naturally, after a while, these posts start to pile up. I went through them and compiled all the ones that dealt with religion, the Church, and/or Christianity.

In these posts, I tackle issues of race, the problem of evil, the problem of suffering, and many other issues that Church types are often afraid to discuss. However, they are not meant to tear down specific people or personalities. They are only meant to provoke constructive discussion on different ideas.

That’s it. I promise.

Did I get it right all the time? I’d love to think so, but the entire world knows that probably isn’t the case. All I ask is for is reasonable consideration and discussion of my ideas and I’ll grant the same to you and yours. If Scripture can be found to settle the issue, then we’ll leave it at that.

Fair enough? Good.

This volume consists of three books.

Book 1. The Decline of the Church (and Other Stuff Christians Don’t Want to Talk About)

Short creative essays and stories about Christian issues.

Book 2. Lessons Learned in the Mourning

Personal reflections on the death of loved ones.

Book 3. Beauty in a Scorched Land

A story and personal reflections after a time of working in Africa.

Thanks for diving into this collection, I hope it provokes you…in a good way :)

Feel free to get in touch with me if you want to discuss any of these items further.

Have a good day,

Kelvin

www.kelvinbueckert.com

1

Book 1. The Decline of the Church

2

Resting in the Lord

My first sermon. It was preached on May 2, 2021. Outside, on a rainy Sunday morning. -Kelvin

***

Good morning, I’ll have to admit, this feels a bit unusual. Usually, when I’m on stage I’m doing other things, as some of you know. However, you can rest assured that I won’t do those sorts of things today. Maybe that’s a disappointment…or maybe that’s a relief. I don’t know.

In any case, today we’re going to look at some scripture and see what it has to say to us. If you want to follow along, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 1. While you are doing that, let me ask you a couple of questions.

Have you ever felt tired and worn out?

Have you ever felt discouraged?

No, you don’t need to raise your hand or honk your horns.

I think it’s safe to say that we have all experienced times of discouragement.

I know I have. I can think of a time in my life when I burned myself out so badly that some people close to me thought I was having a heart attack.

I won’t get into all the reasons for why that happened. I will say that what I learned then is that you can stress yourself out so much, you can work yourself so hard, that your body emits certain chemicals to shut you down.

This isn’t as much fun as it sounds. Believe me.

For quite a few months after that encounter with extreme burnout, I was quite discouraged. I was in a lockdown-type situation and I couldn’t even blame the government for it. I had brought all that trouble on myself. After that moment of crisis, I had to spend months resting to build up strength again. I had a lot of time to think and the things I was thinking were similar to what we will read in our first Scripture passage this morning. Ecclesiastes Chapter 1.

The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 Meaningless! Meaningless!

says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless."

3 What do people gain from all their labors

at which they toil under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,

and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south

and turns to the north;

round and round it goes,

ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

The eye never has enough of seeing,

nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,

Look! This is something new?

It was here already, long ago;

it was here before our time.

11 No one remembers the former generations,

and even those yet to come

will not be remembered

by those who follow them.

Keep your finger in Ecclesiastes, we’ll get back to it in a minute or two. But first, let’s take a moment to consider this passage. Picture this, Solomon is sitting in his palace, surrounded by all the luxuries of his time, and he is writing the words I just read. He describes the cycles of nature, the rivers running…the wind blowing…there is always something to tickle the ears, and our eyes always something more to look at. None of this ever changes and really, what does it all matter anyway? None of us will be remembered by those who come after us…and so, what is the point? WHAT IS the POINT of it all? That is the big question of Ecclesiastes.

And because of that, many people ask what is the point of even reading Ecclesiastes? It’s too depressing and life has enough depressing things in it already. Well, don’t give up yet…we’ve just begun our study. Maybe by the end of this message, you’ll look at this book a little differently.

Ecclesiastes takes its name from the Greek ekklesiastes, a translation of the title by which the main figure refers to himself: Kohelet, meaning something like one who convenes or addresses an assembly. Or, as some translate it, teacher. It is a controversial book. Some people have wondered if it should actually be in the Bible or not.

Maybe you are one of those people. If so, I would ask you to consider a typical map. A map shows us the bigger picture of the area where we are traveling. It shows us the way we need to go. It also shows us the roads that aren’t paved, the bush trails, and the roads that go nowhere.

If the Bible is our map to life, Ecclesiastes is a book that shows us the bush trails and the dead ends.

Other people ask, what does Solomon know about anything anyway? He may have started off well, but he sure made a mess of his life. Well, that is true. But consider chapter 12 of 1 King that we just heard read for us. The Lord himself said that there will never again be anyone like Solomon. He was the wisest man who ever lived. That is a pretty amazing endorsement. Now, since the wisest man who ever lived explored many of the things that this world has to offer and then wrote down what he discovered, wouldn’t it be worth taking a look to see what he found out?

If having bigger and better experiences was the answer, Solomon had a life full of the best experiences of his time, but at the end of his life, he was still looking for something more.

If gathering more knowledge was enough to bring peace of mind, Solomon should have been a man at peace with himself and the world around him.

If having more things is the key to happiness…Solomon should have been one of the happiest characters around. However, what do we read in Ecclesiastes Chapter 2?

So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23 All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night, their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Basically, Solomon continues building on the theme that he began in Chapter 1. The ultimate futility of all the brilliant things that he was busy working on and the realization that he would have to leave everything he worked so hard for to someone who didn’t work for them at all.

This was a depressing thought for him. But isn’t this true? All things we work so hard for in this world are going to go to somebody else in the end. We don’t get to stay on this earth forever.

Maybe we don’t like to consider ideas like this.

Maybe deep down we think we don’t really have anything much in common with Solomon. He was rich and famous. He was just another person who had it all and then went off the deep end. The entertainment business is full of these sorts of stories. You know how actors are. We can shake our heads and thank God that we aren’t like those kinds of people.

But, let me ask you this, what if we as a society have more in common with the author of Ecclesiastes than we think?

Did you know that you are probably one of the richest people in the world? Maybe you don’t believe me…but according to the global rich list, it only takes an annual income of $32,400 to join the world’s richest 1%. Do you feel rich this morning? Well, you are. It would take workers in poor nations like Zimbabwe 31 years to earn this amount. Yes, compared to them, those of us in North America are unbelievably rich in material things.

However, despite being in the world’s richest 1%, 22 percent of surveyed Canadians reported that they had been diagnosed with depression, with another 20 percent saying they had received an anxiety disorder diagnosis. Both of those rates are the highest MHRC has measured, and if you think this is because of COVID, this is only four percentage points higher than before the pandemic.

If you spend any time at all on social media, watching the news, down at the coffee shop, or even looking in the mirror, it would be easy to get the impression that people these days are not very happy.

What will it take to make us happy?

Would we be happy if tomorrow morning they announced that COVID was gone for good? Probably for a while…but how long would it take for us to find something else to complain about?

Would we be happier if we had bigger and better experiences?

Would we finally achieve peace of mind if we had more money or nicer things?

According to Ecclesiastes, the answer is no. According to Solomon, all these things are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. We can spend our lives working ourselves sick to get them, but in the end, we don’t get to keep them anyway.

This can be a depressing thought, however, I would suggest to you this morning that there is also encouragement and direction to be found in Ecclesiastes.

What? How could Ecclesiastes be an encouragement? Well, let’s consider the common theme we find throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. I’m not going to read the whole book to you now, but I would encourage you to study up at home for yourselves. As we flip through the chapters of Ecclesiastes the common letter we find is…I…as in, I set my heart to study…I set my hands to work…I decided to test all these things to see what was good…and so on.

The common letter is I…I did all these things…and who did I do all these things for? Me!

When we put ourselves at the center of everything isn’t this where the worries start?

We worry that we don’t have enough money. Then when we get more money, we worry that somebody might take that money away from us.

We worry about how to get bigger crowds and more applause, then when we get them, we worry that we might lose them.

We worry