ChristianWeek

Let's face it, 2006 was not a great year for the Canadian church. Evangelical scandals south of the border tarnished our reputation by extension. Local churches lived through conflicts, splits, clergy misconduct and financial strain. And in spite of herculean efforts that apparently succeeded in getting a Christian into 24 Sussex Drive to push our conservative political agenda, gay marriage and several other watershed issues still have not gone "our way".

But there was an upside.

After a disastrous cholesterol test, my doctor's suggestions included giving blood regularly. I don't understand the logistics (or the ethics!) of passing on my cholesterol to unsuspecting victims, but I have been giving blood every sixty days.

While the gesture is less altruistic for me, I like the Quebec blood bank's ads that put a face and a name to my "gift of life" by featuring individuals who depend on transfusions and blood products. Even the quarterly reports that used to include only financial statements now provide statistics about the amount of blood given, the number of transfusions made possible and the lives touched by the process.

If Tony Campolo is right when he says that "the church is the only organization in the world that exists for the benefit of its non members", then maybe we need to take a cue from the Quebec blood services when we evaluate the performance of the Canadian church. It's not about the church, and its political agenda and its reputation—it's about people.

Israel didn't understand that what matters most to God are people and not the empty externals of temple worship. So he finally let their glorious religious edifice get demolished at the hands of impure gentiles.

With our political failure on this issue of defining marriage, God is letting our precious temple get pulverized. Over the past year Canadian churches spent hundreds of thousand of dollars, precious pastoral time, valuable Sunday morning worship and months of prayer trying to legislate morality while hurting people went needy.

Let's remember the lesson we've learned from Constantine—God's best work is never done in the halls of power. We must put our earthly political aspirations aside. It might be more glamourous to spend time at 24 Sussex and on Parliament Hill, but the work of God is most often done in the gutters and back alleys and the dark dangerous corners where the needy and the hurting are cowering in pain.

We may be disappointed at our lack of political success in 2006, but God is weeping over the broken people we stepped on and forgot about while we tried to cozy up to the elites of power. There's nothing like your own failure and brokenness to refocus you on the needy and hurting for whom Christ died.