How To Be The Church In 2009
I laid in bed after the New Year’s Ball dropped in New York City wondering what this next year will really hold for me, my family, our church, and our world. I thought about this past year and what kind of mark we left on our community. Did we make a difference in the lives of people? Did we reach out and touch a life? Did someone feel more loved? Did someone come to know God better? Did we really become the church, the hands and feet of God?
Looking over those questions I see a difference from years past. We have begun reaching beyond our walls, touching lives, giving and being the church. Looking at the events we’ve had this past year, it amazes me once again to see all that we have accomplished. As a church we are changing. We are becoming more mission focused and seeing that we can’t just talk about church, we must take another step in living that out.
As we change and grow, fear will set in and probably has for some already. The question then becomes, do we stop and pull back? Do we pull the reins back and say, “Woahhhh?” Do we allow our fears to direct us or do we continue to put our faith and trust in God who has brought our church through so much?
It would be easy to focus inward once again and allow the church to fall back into a survival mentality, but this was never the reason for becoming a church. If we go back to why this church was established, it was never to have a building in Williamson that housed the Christians of the town. It was to have a place where Christians could meet and then go from there out into the community to meet real needs, to do real ministry, to share real love. It was to have a place where we could learn about God and his love so that we could take it from here to our neighbor. The mission led to the formation of a building, not the other way around. The mission found that having a building could increase the number of people that heard about God and his love.
We have to keep this in mind whenever we do anything. Being the Church is not about maintaining or preserving a building, it is about maintaining and preserving a live and active Christian community. I spoke on Christmas Sunday, about a church that had a huge endowment that kept their building open and looking beautiful, but the church had no ministry or mission programs. In essence it ceased being a church. It ceased being what the church was created for. It took the hope and love and grace that it was given, and offered it only to those who came through the doors.
Ministry in our time has changed. People no longer flock to churches. We now have to go to them and it’s not the most comfortable thing to do. It’s not the easiest thing, but it’s the reason we are here in this place, at this time. We have been called for this moment in time and we must not preserve what we have, we must press on to reach out even more. We must allow the mission to shape us. We must allow God to move us forward. We must allow faith to guide us.
Being the Church in 2009 means that we will have to step out of our comfort zones even more. It means that we will have to give more. It means we will have to do things we may have never done before. It means that we will be stretched for the Gospel. I’m excited by what God can do with people willing to give their all and not hold anything back from him. I’m excited about the lives we can touch. I’m excited by the needs we can meet. Our time to minister is now, let’s not hold back for a future time, but let’s give our all now!
