Where's Your Motivation?

Well we just finished homework here at the Quick home tonight and I must confess that some nights I struggle with Anna’s reluctance to do homework. She will daydream, fiddle, doodle, piddle, and even revolt, all the while knowing she has to do the work before other activities will occur. Someday she will make a great church person…maybe a leader! Aren’t we just like that? Jesus told us in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." We will be his witnesses…yet we daydream, fiddle, doodle, piddle, and downright revolt when we are called upon (at times by God) to share our witness…all the while knowing that until we do, the Kingdom will not grow, souls will not be saved, believers will not mature, and the Church will not move forward. Still we resist. My covenant group is reading a book called “Unbinding the Gospel” which asks the basic question, “Why do/don’t we evangelize?” The author, Martha Grace Reese, in this four year study of mainline denominational churches, tries to determine what motivates the 21st Century American Church, or as it were, what is our lack of motivation for real life evangelism. This is some interesting reading and you will be hearing more about it in the days and weeks to come, but until then…as I so often say to Anna, “Let’s get to work!”