What About Church?
Story★★★★Dwight L. Moody, the great American evangelist, was visiting one evening in the home of a businessman, who asked: “Isn’t it enough that I worship God on my own each day? Why then would I need to interrupt my life and attend a church week after week?” Moody listened without comment. Finally he leaned over, picked up the fireplace tongs, reached into the roaring flames, and pulled out a single burning coal onto the stone hearth. While the two men watched in silence that red-hot coal separated from the other fiery embers slowly began to dim its glow and lose its fire—until finally in a last wisp of smoke nothing was left but the cold, charred remains. The question was answered.
The point
Dwight Moody answered a businessman's question about church attendance by pulling a coal from the fire; separated from others, it dimmed—illustrating faith's need for community and church.