What do you get when you cross a ship and a mountain?
A mess of a Five-Day Forecast.
In his letter to his protégé, Paul describes Timothy's colleagues as having "suffered shipwreck in the faith."
He puts it this way: "I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain (other) persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith…" (1 Timothy 1:19)
"Suffered shipwreck in the faith."
What a great phrase.
Paul, of course, knows something about being shipwrecked. Paul was a passenger on a ship that had run aground. Paul employs this phrase to capture the sense of hopelessness that can come with weathering the storm. For the likes of Timothy's fellow church leaders, they had become shipwrecked in the faith because they had rejected "conscience." (1 Timothy 1:19) In laymen's terms, these individuals chose a life dedicated to their wants and desires and shunned the Christ-like life God expects. Because of that, their lives are taking on water.
A shipwrecked faith is one that has crashed on the rocks, that is stuck, that is sinking.
Is your faith shipwrecked? We've certainly had to endure a series of storms powerful enough to wreck our faithfulness to God and a life of being the Church. But just as Paul experienced a real-life shipwreck, a shattered faith does not have to be the end.
On Sunday, I shared what a post-pandemic Church might look like. The image I shared is rooted in Psalm 46. The Bible teaches us that "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." Likewise, just as God cares and provides for us, the Church should be a refuge and strength for others. When I think of a place of sanctuary and restoration, I envision a base camp.
A base camp is an encampment where hikers and mountain explorers gather together to prepare for excursions in the wild. Visitors to a base camp stock up on supplies, rest, learn more about the terrain they are traveling, swap stories, and plan to take on the mountain with renewed energy and high spirits.
It sounds like Church. If the mountain that we are to traverse and scale is life—whether at school, at home, at work, or retirement—then base camp is a gathering that finds its purpose in supporting and blessing the work of those who live out on the mountain each day.
But when we're up on the mountain, there is a risk of a fall. We know well that we can stumble in life, as well as in our faith. When we venture too far away from base camp up on the mountain, we risk being in a place where the air is too thin. At other times, we get swept away by events in life that feel like an avalanche of grief, and we doubt the reasons we're on the mountain in the first place.
A base camp church, then, is a place of refuge where we can find our strength in God. We know this truth because those who have gathered at base camp share their testimonies of God's presence with them up on the mountain.
I know. I'm mixing my metaphors. But that's what we do when we're eager to convey something important, and we struggle with how to share it. Frequently, the truth is bigger than any one particular image. Or at least, that's what Jesus's rich collection of metaphors teach us.
Here's the Good News: You're not the first to be shipwrecked in the faith, and you won't be the last to stumble on the mountain. The gathered from base camp known as the First Baptist Church of Sylva are on a search and rescue mission to find you.
And just like God, we will.
Pray for the strength, therefore, to be found.