I accidently fell asleep in church today. The sermon was really good, but I could not keep my eyes open. I am glad I wasn't sleeping in a window sill on the second story...
Dad, er I mean Pastor Tom, our Sunday School teacher, is challenging us to be a church as a force for the world. A lot of churches use their building (the Church as a field concept) as a way for reaching out to the community and reaching people for Jesus. We are learning that the church is not where we should be working, instead we need to go out into the world (the world is a field, the Church is a force). I am really getting inspired by this series we are going through. I think it would be so cool for our church to grasp this concept and really be a force for God. I want to see us get involved with missions. I want us to change how we go about our service and just let go and let God take control. I want us to be set on fire for Jesus.
I have to admit I am one frustrated Christian when it comes to our church. I feel like my church's whole philosphy is this idea of the "Church as a field". Last week my pastor preached on being hearers of the word and also doers of the word! It was a great passage in the Bible in the book of James, but it didn't seem as though the passage was the focus of the sermon. He instead decided to share with us his vision for the new year for our church: to have at least 75 in attendance every Sunday morning. Pastor Gary insisted that if we were hearers and doers of the word we would see that we need to invite our friends and people we know to our church to increase our numbers.
WHAT!?!??! Since when did Cornerstone Christian Church become a church focused on numbers and being large? I understand that it is our mission to grow, but it is our mission to grow through the people we reach for Christ, not filling our seats with random people we invited for a week just to fill the seats. When we first started attending our church I remember the pastors always saying: I would rather have 20 spirit filled, Jesus loving Christians, than 1,000 people coming to church because it's the 'good' thing to do. (Not in so many words but that's why it's not in quotes).
It goes back to the Church as a field concept. Our church is lazy! Yeah that's right I said it! We are lazy people. We just want people to stroll into our building by pure happenstance and join our body and get involved. I understand that God is in control, but God put us here, God blessed us with this building so that we would work to reach our community for Jesus!
I am not writing this because I want to bad mouth my pastor. I really don't. It's not all his fault. My pastor is a great man of God. I just think he relays his sermons in a very unorganized fashion that leaves us confused and sends us the wrong message. I am frustrated, but not just at my Pastor or at my church. I am also frustrated with myself. I have had this idea my entire life. I am a lazy Christian. I think, "if only I could get (insert whatever name here) to church they would get saved." However, I don't do anything more than ask people to come to church. I can't remember the last time I shared Christ with someone or even had a conversation about church and God. I am also pretty sure that people around me in my everyday don't always see Christ through everything I say and do.
I had the opportunity to visit another church last week for the evening service. Me and Kat went to Joshua House at the Vineyard in Westerville. It was an amazing service. The worship was great, the sermon was awesome, we took communion which I haven't been able to do since Easter last year. I just had a great time in fellowship with God. The pastor talked about Initiation inspired by the new year and resolutions. This is what really hit me:
After talking about what you need to initiate something, he said:
The worst thing you can do is to initiate SIN. It's important to keep that in mind. That Sin is important and sinning is terrible, it's what put Jesus on the cross.
The second worst thing that you can do is to initiate NOTHING! Wow. It was like a brick came out of no where and slammed me right in the face. Here I was sitting thinking about how frustrated I was with my church and everything they do wrong. Sure I am not contributing to the wrong things happening in our church, but I am also not contributing anything good either. I remembered the discussion I had with my dad two hours before this: I can be as frustrated as I want, I can even leave and find another church somewhere else, but if I don't change my attitude I am going to find the same thing: unsatisfying frustration. We had just talked about in Sunday School that morning about how the young adults in our church could be the changing force in our church. If we would just INITIATE. But instead we just sat there in silence that morning.
I would like to put all the blame on my church and say that it's their fault I am not growing, it's their fault I get frustrated everytime I go to church, it's their fault our church acts as a field and not a force. But the reality is....it's my fault. I am to blame because I am not contributing at all. I haven't initiated anything.
I started this blog to find out how to not waste my life. I think I am 'wasting' my time.
(Heavenly Father, I have no clue what my purpose in our church is. A week ago I was ready to throw in the towel and move on to another church. But now I am not so sure that is what You have in Your plans for me. I don't want to stay in neutral. I don't want to sin, but Lord Jesus I also don't want to do Nothing! Help me to find my purpose. Help me to be a driving force in what changes our church to become what You want it to become. Lord, change my heart. I want to worship You, I want to be closer to You, and most importantly I want to share You with others. In Jesus' name, Amen!)
I am sorry this one was so long winded. I have been stewing on this for a few weeks now and I needed to share with someone what is going on in my head. Pray for me as I figure out how to initiate something in my church! and pray for my church too!
Thanks for reading!
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