a shrink-wrapped church
“But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” — Hebrews 10:39
We, the church, have a choice: we can take our ball and go home or we can move forward in faith. We can look at the downward spiral of our world and decide we cannot make a difference. We can see a tight economy and decide that big dreams are a luxury of the past. We can choose to survive instead of thriving.
Not me.
I’m not content to live in or work with a shrink-wrapped church.
We shrink-wrap food to protect it. The idea is to keep the bad stuff from contaminating the good stuff. Shrink-wrapping is designed to delay the inevitable: the death of the food. Eventually, even shrink-wrapped food will decay. Why? Because it’s no longer alive.
A church that shrinks back is a church that is either dead or in the process of dying. Either way, the outcome is the same: that church will be destroyed. The brick-and-mortar may still be standing. There’s a good chance they still meet on Sundays and nice people sing nice songs.
The building may be standing, but their influence has been destroyed.
Influence comes through moving forward, not by retreating. Let me be redundant: the kingdom is advanced by an advancing church. We may take three steps forward and two steps backwards, but we will stil be one step ahead. But the key is forward motion.
Don’t settle for survival. And don’t set out to break attendance records. Set out to be faithful to the call of God to have faith and be obedient.
—– DIG DEEPER —–
King’s Cross by Timothy Keller. A good look at how God wants the influence of Jesus to impact the world through you.
church was GREAT today!!
Yes it was! Mark’s message was outstanding. My favorite line: “Don’t overestimate your audience’s vocabulary or underestimate their intelligence.” (quoting Haddon Robinson)