Is Anyone?
Is anyone as sick as I am with the Church in America that counts offerings and people as a measure of success? Whatever happened to the Acts measure, On a given day, 5,000 came to Christ.
Is anyone sick of watching believers reshuffling from place to place? One month this Church is growing, the next month this Church is growing - with shifting saints. Why do we do all that we do?
Jesus allowed great persecution so that the Gentiles could hear the Gospel and respond. What will it take to move the saints out of the pew on Sunday into the world to make an impact?
The real measure of success is the Acts measure, daily people were coming to Christ. It wasn't fancy buildings, large offerings or a record crowd. Souls were being saved from a Christless eternity.
Did you know, I was deceived into thinking buildings, budgets and bulging crowds was the measure of success. Now I realize that success for me is a soul being transformed by the power of the Gospel. The other stuff is chicken feed. The real stuff is life-transformation at work, at play, or in our living rooms. Success is seeing Jesus' words become transformational and reproducible in the lives of others over and over and over again.
I pray so hard for that soul. I desperately need to reach that soul.
posted by Bob Carder @ 11:04 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I traveled in 2005-06 from Texas to Florida to Georgia leading praise and worship in various churches. We have some problems.
The problem I'm seeing is that there is a lot more controlling than humility from the "Shepherd and controling from the wife".
This is not everywhere I went but I thought, perhaps they're burned out?
I always found the people to be really wonderful.
It seems that when something happens in a church that may be offensive, the hurt ones are not consoled. Jesus went after the sheep who were lost; Paul says, I become all things to all people that I may reach some. These churches did not do that.
Try getting a call back from a senior pastor these days.
Should we have churches so large that the "Shepherd" does not know the majority of the sheep?
I also find "clicks" in churches.
The secretaries and pastors wife
seemed to walk out of their way to avoid me. Is everybody a "special personality" in the church?
I've spent 5 years being called to
play keyboard (I was the favorite because I would flow with the Spirit) for various services, yet when I tried to go full time into music ministry, my pastor would not take up an offering for me after much work on a concert in which people were blessed and saved and I needed money to live.
I asked for help with a power bill and was refused. (This was a church of 4oo to 600 people and there was no paid staff for music.)
I love the Lord. I love His people and love to provide great
music but ... what is going on when the "Shepherd" does not train the "sheep" to go out and do the work of Christians? Or does not watch over his flock so that wolves cannot distroy them?
Dear Christians, all are not like this but we have a lot to pray about. - unknown lamb -
Anonymous; I feel your pain and would love to speak with you.
I cannot possibly know your specific pain but I do know the pain that cannot be described with human words. All pain from the hands of those who seem so holy until...
Well, I am here for you. I understand in a strange sort of way, but not fully.
Can I help you, will you let me help you?
We must connect, somehow, someway, very soon.
We need whatever God wants to give- Large and small and everything else. It is the Shepherd who must train all of us to use our gifts for ministry out of the pew and into the world. If all were using their gifts, your needs would have been met, maybe not by the shepherd, but perhaps by those he released.
You describe a 1950's model of ministry where the senior pastor has CONTROL over everything. This is not only wrong, it could even be sin.
Please send me your resume, I'd like to find a place for you to use your spiritual gifts in ministry.
You are on to something here.
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