Our faithfulness to the church is paramount.  It is not our church.  We should love it and want to take care of it for God.  He has put every one of us in a church because our gifts can be used there.  When you miss a Sunday your gifts are not utilized and someone is not getting ministered to .  When you miss a practice for praise team or drama ministry you essentially say you don’t care about the people that are involved or the church as a whole because your time is more important than they are.

I think for me this has hit home over the last year.  I have seen so many people step up to do things like;  plan visitor connection times or step out of their comfort zone and teach a class that when I see people just snub their nose at the church because they are tired that Sunday it really get’s to me.

Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Think about that the next time it is to hard to get out of bed on Sunday or maybe when you figure out you have committed yourself to so many things outside the church you can’t give any time to God.

Read Marc Driscoll’s Blog here:

The Mars Hill Blog | Blog Archive » Final Thoughts From Pastor Mark at 12:37am After the Lowest Sunday in Many Years.

I receive a weekly newsletter from Leadership Journal and I usually just go through the main articles then file it in my leadership folder for future reference.  Today I scrolled through it and decided to go to their blog called Out of UR.  David Swanson has written a very good article about the new move toward a social justice in our conservative churches.

About four years ago we had a guy come to our church to help us discover our mission and try to figure out how to reach our community.  During one of these session I pointed out that our church does no mission work either in our neighborhood or abroad.  I was met with a resounding what are you talking about our this and we that.  So I knew we were going to get no where.  Yes we give about 13% of our budget to missions but we do no missional work what so ever.  But I digress

This article points out what I was trying to tell our congregation 4 years ago.  We need to see the hurting and get involved.  Unlike the social gospel movement in more liberal churches we are equipped to share the gospel when we do these missional projects.  My point is that we need to get involved.  Read the article I think you will like it.

Urban Exile: Re-discovering Justice? | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders.

Mart De Haan gives a great look at Paul and without saying it, legalism.  He shows how Paul looked at the law as a mirror of ourselves not as something to be lived up to.

He never denied that the law of Moses tells the truth about us. He just used the law like a doctor uses diagnostic tests. Not as a cure, but to show what’s wrong.

Been Thinking About » Messianics, Law, and Grace.

The church is open to all who believe.

In his book Gifts of the Desert Kyriacos Markides quotes a Greek Orthodox Monk saying, “The Church Is like a hospital, it takes fallen, sick, and confused human beings, who suffer from all sorts of destructive passions and sins, and with its very tangible therapeutic methods helps them attain real health.”

In Ephesians 4 14-15 Paul says this:

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

Many people say that the Christian Church is exclusive But when you step back and look every major religion is exclusive.

But I also want to make it known that it is also inclusive Jesus said in John 3 starting at verse 14 Jesus says this:

“14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Don’t miss the next sentence

17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

People outside the Church spend so much time telling us that we cause hate because we believe that Jesus is the only way to God. God knows who will and who will not accept Christ. We do not need to put human constraints on an all knowing, all seeing, eternal God. If some one does not want to be with him now why would he want to cause them the grief of spending eternity with him.

The world today says the Christian message today is one of exclusivity but I want them to see that Jesus died for everyone and when you take all the world religions today none of them but Christianity have a loving God at there heart who would give his son for our sins. They just don’t.

The church of god (Anderson In) says this: No one person decides that another will or will not be admitted to membership in a local group. Neither congregations nor congregational leaders vote on who shall be received as members. The Church of God believes that when one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, God places that person in the church

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 sums it all up.

20“My prayer is not for them alone (he has just prayed for the disciples). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

If you are not part of the Body of Christ today I’m not going to tell you that you have to go to the front of a church, you can pray right where you are. None of us are here by coincidence or chance we are here for a reason. So if you do not know Jesus all you need to do to start the process is tell him you want to know more about him ask him to guide you as you read your bible and he will begin to draw you closer to him and reveal himself more and more to you.

The Church should function as one

Ephesians 4:1-3 says

1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

If you have ever set in a church business meeting then you know functioning as one is not always as easy as it sounds. However, if we are to put our focus on Christ and his mission for us here on earth we need to stop focusing on ourselves and what we want church to be. It does not matter if the church is emerging, contemporary, or liturgical if the people in it are focused on what they need and not the mission of Christ then the church is failing.

1cor 12:21-26

21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Look out for each other. That is the bottom line. If you are busy trying to get noticed and get your way then you are not following what Paul is telling the Corinthians here. Be a help not a hindrance to spreading the gospel.