The SkyScraper and the Pipefitter

[Peter Debelak]

I have some rambling thoughts which spring-board from John's latest chapter. These thoughts expose my problems with "action" etc...(which is a really stupid thing to have a problem with, so take me in the right way). I wrestle quite a bit in this area, so my thoughts here probably expose more about me than they are a critique of what John is conveying, but anyways... Here's John in blue - I follow in black...

Well-versed LC members have for many years heard about the primacy of the church and the necessity of building it up. Some may wonder why, if the Lord’s four-fold gospel mission is truly comprehensive, He didn’t include “Go build up My church” among His parting commands. But looking at the “preach-repent-feed-disciple” mission and not seeing in it the building up of the church is religious blindness. It is like observing all the things on a construction site—excavation, electrical wiring, plumbing, steel and concrete work—but not being able to perceive in them an emerging skyscraper.


I’ve done construction work, and I am currently – in part – trying to make an income form making furniture. I have always had my eye on the “skyscraper”, the “vision”. Usually, when I do that, I do shotty electrical work. I don’t sand all the way to 220 grit. I don’t do the 7 coats of Teak Oil that I should, I stop at 4. I’m too anxious to see the final product.

I have no problem with “perceiving” the final product, the “skyscraper.” No, let me restate: I have no problem knowing that there is, in fact, a skyscraper being built. Because that calls you to something. But problems arise when people claim – or worse, when you claim – that you know what the skyscraper is supposed to look like, that you’ve seen the blueprint. Consider 1 Corintians 12 and the giving of gifts. We could look at this list of gifts in a top-down fashion. The “apostle” sees it all and the rest fall in from there. Or we could see the diversification of gifts as evidence that no one sees or could implement it all. It requires many talents (in both sense of the word). It requires “all the saints” for comprehension, for the multifarious wisdom of God to shame the and awe the principalities and powers.

To use John’s analogy of building a building… I was a pipefitter for some time. I can’t say that once my interest in my job was inspired or stifled by what the final product would be. It was what I was called to do and doing that work met my needs and also met the needs of the “architect”, owner and general contractor. Would I be a worse or better pipefitter if I “knew” what I was building? I’m not sure it mattered.

Admittedly, the Christian life is not pipe-fitting. But Paul’s experience is instructive (no, I’m not making that kind of comparison). After being knocked off (and on) his ass on the road to Damascus, he did not confer with flesh and blood. He didn’t go to Jerusalem, despite knowing that, if anywhere, that’s where the “blueprint” was. He knew simply that the believers were Christ and knew to obey the Lord’s call. Yeah, he got “vision” of the blueprint at some point. But not before he subjected himself to someone likely far less schooled (Ananias) and having no feeling to immediately join those who did “know” (in Jerusalem). The wilderness was where God called Him. The antithesis of “vision” or “skyscraper” – just as it was for the children of Israel. He did not first learn a vision. He first learned obedience. The “vision” was a fruit of that.

There is something important to the knowledge that Christ is building something in these calls to obedience He asks of us. Short of that, our prayers for those around us will tend toward wish-lists. Knowledge that He is building a skyscraper, and we are joined to Him in that endeavor, enables prayer that desires His will be done. That’s the prayer. But that isn’t our action. The prayer has the broad scope. Our action has the most narrow scope possible: that to which He calls us. Whether we see how it fits into the “skyscraper” or not is irrelevant – because to insist that its relevant is to presume a perspective that only God has.

Perhaps this is God’s way. To give us commands that are less than His whole. We’re not entirely sure how they’ll all fit together. We simply have faith that, if I and you and all of us obey those small commands (to preach, to shepherd, to feed, to disciple) – regardless of whether those efforts have a cognizable effect on the ‘skyscraper’ – that Christ is still Building His church. And it is far more dynamic and “sky-scraping” than our version of the blue print could be.

Peter