church plant
Last night I was taking my daughter shopping to spend some of her birthday money and as I was waiting for her to come out of the dressing room my mind started to wander and I started thinking about missions in far away countries. I have no idea why I was thinking about that… then I started thinking how weird it is where your heart leads your head sometimes…
So this morning I was lying in bed, trying to get motivated to get up and start my day, all of a sudden two words just popped in to my head. Church Plant. What?
Yeah, I guess that would be kind of cool if I knew some people who were trying to get a church going in my area. I could definitely try and help out, sure… and I left it at that. Maybe I would even try and do some searches and see if I can find any church planters closer to home…
Then on my way to work this morning I started thinking about even more weird thoughts… like what would this world be like with no sin. What would the church look like? What would the messages be like?
Then I started thinking about the Bible. How it’s kind of a manual for how to live a Godly life in a fallen world. But knowing that it is so much more than just that…
So the more I thought about this world and the church and the Bible and Jesus, I started to think that the very reasons why Jesus had to come to earth are the same reasons the church is here now.
As much as I would like to imagine a world with no sin, I also know that while we’re all here on earth, that is never going to happen. And since that is a cold hard truth, there are some other truths that come along with that. Jesus had to come to seek and save the lost. Luke 19:10
So now back to the church. Since we all know we’ll not see a world without sin in our earthly lifetime, what is the purpose of the church? Is it to be like a hospital for the lost? A place for people far from God to get help and be saved?
How much is the church being like Jesus? How much time are we spending with the lost? Are we making it easy for the lost to find us?
I know there are tons of books and blogs and conferences and whatever on this subject, I just feel that I could read all of them and probably still not get any closer to an answer.
It seems like we’re making some progress… but it also seems like there’s still so much that can be done to seek and save.
The role I’ve played in the past, the role I play now seems so small it’s almost insignificant in my own eyes.
So I’m back to those two words that came to me this morning that I don’t really know what to do with, but maybe God will show me…
