As I work thru next year’s schedule of those yearly events we do largely out of habit, I’ve focused on January, my traditional month of prayer and fasting as we seek God’s will for the New Year. As I worked on it, this thought entered my feeble mind, “What if, instead of having regular Sunday services in January, what if we cancelled those services and entered into a time of fervent prayer and fasting for our community? What if we completely cancelled the morning services in January and instead went to the unchurched with our personal invitation and prayers on Sunday mornings?” Understand that I am not ready to suggest this thought came from God…not just yet…because my first thought was I would probably be fired just for suggesting it! But it was quickly replaced by the thought, “if they won’t come to us, why don’t we go to them?” Now, I know God doesn’t want everyone to attend Beulah…not even everyone in the area. But, are we really trying to reach them? Really? Seems God put a big emphasis in Scripture on “Go make disciples” and never once told us we were to set aside an hour of any day waiting for them to come to us. Unfortunately another thought I had was, if I were to do that, I would be shocked if over a handful would commit to “go.” It seems much easier for most to carve an hour or two out of their week to go to a comfortable, warm church in January to “do their God thing” rather than surrendering their life and investing themselves in Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps Pogo was right when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” Right now I am thinking some of these thought are from God and others from satan…either way, I think God wants to move at Beulah in a powerful way in 2012.
3 comments:
West Frankfort Trinity does this one Sunday a year, I think, calling it "The Church has Left the Building!" I know some of them visit the fire & police stations. I also know they have the T-shirt to go with it too! As an outsider, it looks like a good thing to me.
I think more churches should...
You know what?!? It's a little easier leaving the building when one doesn't have a building to begin with!!
Post a Comment