Have You Noticed Almost Every Church Has a Bell Tower?
It usually stands tall and upright for everyone to view. It is like a finger stretching and pointing God’s chosen people towards heaven. As one church leader remarked, “Bell towers remind us that the principal reason that the church exists is to lead its followers to God.”
Upon arriving in most cities anywhere in the world, the bell tower is usually the first thing everyone sees. It’s a spire rising skyward silently teaching observers that the fundamental meaning of life is seeking God in our everyday living and ultimately seeing God when our life here on earth ends.
The bell tower’s height tips heads upward, nudging those entering the church to think about what they will be doing after entering.
Like athletes preparing for the big victory, God’s followers, prepare. Whether they have lived a short life, or a long life, both have enough time to prepare. It’s never the number of years, rather it’s what we do with the years we have.
They have come to worship their God who made them from love. And now, their God waits unwearyingly for them to be with him for all eternity. His home is their home when this life is over. Any church not pointing its church community toward God is a church in collapse. It is a church not listening to God’s son, who has shown us the way.
Jesus’ father wants his chosen people to listen to Jesus who knows the way to him. Any other voices, pulling us in another direction, such as: hatred, fear, extreme theologies, dangerous conspiracy theories, and ungrounded assumptions are frauds and foolish.
They don’t speak Jesus’ words or hear “that all may be one” and that he would lead them. In John 14:6, where his disciples wanted to know how to get to the Father, Jesus answered that he was the only way to the father, just listen to Jesus, only Jesus.
After experiencing what the bell tower suggests, the community enters the church to: (1) thank God for the opportunity to be invited to heaven; (2) tell God they are sorry for not remembering this during this past week, and; (3) ask God, who listens, to give us another chance as God, the father always does.
Anyone having different ideas about what prayer is or worship is, and, then passes the bell tower to enter, no matter who they are, finds welcome in a church under Jesus’ mandate: “that all may be one.” Because Jesus is called savior, not slayer.
The presence and lesson of any tall inviting bell tower reminds us that God’s power protects us, and his mercy receives us. When we enter, be ready to let God’s grace embrace and his power guide us.
When we do these things, we allow God’s desire that we welcome one another, rather than push each other away. We open ourselves to God’s love, guidance, protection, and mercy, and soon Jesus’ voice will become the sole voice that guides us.
The bell tower, God’s sentinel, fortifies us, leading us to where we need to be.
In life our convictions compel us. Choices beget choices. And our growth becomes the only evidence of life.
Painting: The Church at Auvers by Vincent Van Gogh.
