Subscribe via email

Enter your email address:

Friday 26 September 2014

Are You Leaching the Local Church?

I was in two minds as to whether to share Ryan Shelton's post with you.   It made me wince and it may make you squirm but that's not necessarily a bad thing.   One of the big curses of our age and the thing that many of us are significantly influenced by if not enslaved to is consumerism.  50 years ago this wasn't the case but today it's probably the biggest tool in our enemy's arsenal.  
Here's Ryan's post and the warning he gives about not being a church consumer.  Let's be on our guard.

Are You Leaching the Local Church?

When I was a teen, I bought into the very fashionable assumption that the local church would only cramp my style and put a barrier to “authentic spirituality.” I stopped attending for a while until I got wind of a hip, cool church across town that was full of attractive, young, relevant people. The music was great, the preaching was edgy, and the atmosphere was exciting.
For months, I drove all the way across town, nearly an hour each way, to attend services at the church that “got it.” It was a booming place, with six fully packed services each weekend. And if I arrived late, I was turned away because the fire department was keeping a close eye on the safety capacity.
It all ended for me one week, when the pastor said something that disturbed me. I remember it something like this:
For those of you who come here every week thinking attendance makes you good with God, you’re wrong. Some of you are driving from the other side of the metroplex, and are not really connected to the church at all. If you’re just coming here, not involved in a small group, not serving with nursery, parking, or ushering — if you’re just here to hear the band or listen to me talk — go somewhere else. You’re a leech. And quite frankly, we could use your seat.
That was a harsh thing for me to hear, but I can attest now that it was a most loving gift to me. That was my last weekend at that church, and I began searching for a local body where I could serve in a context of real relationships.
More Than Showing Up
I continue to grow in my love for the local church. One of the ways God has grown my love for the church is by teaching me that worship is more than showing up.
How amazing is God’s design in creating the church! God could immediately and directly pour his grace into us, giving us all the nourishment we need for this Christian life. But in his wisdom, he chooses to operate through people, not just private devotions. And specially so when local church is gathered in worship.
Think about it, the last time you sensed God’s powerful intervention in your life in a corporate worship gathering, consider how many people God used to deliver that grace to you.
  • It may have been a preacher who spent days studying a passage to explain it clearly to you.
  • It may have been a musician who spent hours practicing songs to make them stirring and musically satisfying.
  • It may have been a songwriter who poured over biblical truths to articulate them with beautiful poetry.
  • It may have been a parking-lot attendant sweating through his shirt so that your minivan, and so many others, could navigate congested parking lot between services.
  • It may have been a kitchen worker who cut up pastries so that your stomach isn’t making noise even though you forgot breakfast.
  • Or it may have been the faithful saint sitting beside you raising their hands and encouraging you that some truths are worth getting excited about.
In a thousand ways, the last time God poured grace over you in a weekend service, consider how many people were involved in his decisive work.
Receive from God, Give to Others
I marvel that God meets me in profound ways through un-extraordinary people who do more than just show up for Sunday worship. And it fills me with great joy to think that through my participation, someone else might go home saying “God really met with us today.”
I’m glad I received that harsh word so many years ago, but maybe you don’t need to be called a leech to see the gathering of the church is about more than just showing up. Gather this weekend expecting to receive from God in a hundred different ways, through dozens of different people. And consider how God might have you give of your gifts so that he can bless others through you. Receive from him, and remember the words of Jesus as you orient on others: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

It's Not About Making "A Difference", It's About Making Disciples

On Sunday I spoke about how our core calling is to make disciples, men and women who joyfully organize their lives around Jesus to the glory of God.  If you're part of LBC let me encourage you to have a listen, it's an important message. http://lymingtonbaptist.org/mp3s/Called%20to%20make%20disciples.mp3

I referenced Malcolm Duncan who has done more to mobilize the church in the UK to social action and community engagement than probably anyone else.  But for all that's been done he's the first to say that it's not enough.  All authority was not given to Jesus in order that we could "make a difference" but so that we could make disciples, apprentices of Jesus who, in all areas of life, are becoming like their Savior.

Here's an extract of the lecture he gave at LICC.
“We can build a society that looks healthy, without God. We can create activists and campaigners who change the world, without God. But the change will be temporary and it will not last.
But if we give ourselves to forming Christ in those who have surrendered their lives to him, if we make growing disciples our central purpose as a body of Christ. If we help one another to encounter, walk with, and serve Christ in every area of our lives in the fullest sense of the word, then the world around us will feel the impact and we will also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and end the injustices that we confront.
But we will do it in his power… not in our own.
A Church for the nation must surely seek to enable those who own the name of Christ to live for him, to serve him, to honour him and to obey him in every single area of their lives - even if it means the redefinition of worship, discipleship, teaching and mission.”
Malcolm Duncan

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Why I Hate Religion

Love this by Jefferson Bethke