The Old Church Clerk

[Starward]

The Lord has blessed these many years, and I am growing old.

The twilight calls my spirit, as these memories unfold.

Leaving behind all worldly things, I say my finest work

was in the job that I have cherished long:  our church's clerk.

Here, in this little building that has stood a century,

I kept the records of our fellowship for all to see.

Our heritage is precious.  Over by that one side door,

Gramps Davis told us how he lived through Shiloh, in the War.

Each harvest time, our Sunday School put on a jubilee---

fried chicken and the fixin's underneath that yonder tree.

And Brother Robertson was always first to sneak some fudge:

he sure could eat in those days, when he was a Federal Judge.

In all those files and ledgers, I wrote down each date and name.

But that is just chronology, and time is just a frame

for life that starts nine months before the baby takes first breath,

and ends in autumn sunset as an old man faces death.

Somewhere between the warm, soft blanket, and the cold, dark grave,

believers come to Jesus Christ, and find Him glad to save.

Some say this present world of ours is growing more complex:

such complications---schoolhouse murders, drugs, and homo-sex.

Some say that life is meaningless, evolved from random chance;

that God's creative work is really lucky circumstance.

Some say the Gospel is just wishful thinking, thin as mists,

more fit for hicks and barefoot girls than highbrow humanists.

AND YES!, among those hicks and barefoot girls, the faith is well.

The church stands firm, though all the sinful world slides into Hell.

Belief is more than wishful thinking, sitting in some pew.

We have been born again in Jesus, whether we be few

or many, and that means we hold on to God's precious Word,

in which enjoyment of Salvation is, in Christ, assured!

Our fellowship in Christ lasts always, whether here or there,

or (for that final generation) raptured through the air.

 

Starward

[Alan]

Thank you very much for the poem on the church and the faith of the folks therein.

"And I say also unto thee, That thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18

It is better to be the clerk in the church than to dwell in the tents of the infidel of this life. 

Alan

Edited August 20, 2017 by Alan
grammer

[DaveW]

Psa 84:10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.