"You will never grow to maturity just by attending worship services and being a spectator. Only participation in the full life of a local church builds spiritual muscle." - Purpose Driven Live

People want joy without pain, to be in shape without exercise, discipleship without their cross. We want to be spectators on what God is doing and go isn't that nice. That is not what God has called us to. Jesus invited almost everyone he met to come along with him in his journey. He invites us even now to join him in his ministry to go to the ends of the earth with him.

We want to look at things, to analyze things, to think about things. Often what we really need to do is take the plunge. We need to have faith and trust God. We need to go wherever we think he is leading us. Only when we've let everything go like that do we truly find what he has to show us. Only then do we truly get to see him at work in our lives.

We need to be willing to suffer for the greater joy. We need to grab the rose despite the thorns. We need to cling to the savior despite the cross. We need to participate in the church despite its imperfections. Because we know our God who is faithful and just will honor our efforts. Those efforts will change not only our church but also us for the better.

As always feel free to e-mail me with your thoughts particularly on things that really resonated with you or that you really disagreed with. I always appreciate different points of view that help to improve my understanding.

“And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you,” 1 Thessalonians 3:12

Have you ever felt welcomed by a group of believers? Have you ever felt appreciated? Have you ever felt loved? You are supposed to be abounding in love welcoming the way you were welcomed and loving the way you were loved. In a perfect world it would be that simple. The problem is that many of you weren’t welcomed, many of you weren’t loved and thus you use it as an excuse to act the same. God has called you to more than that. God has called you to abound in love. To overflow with it in such a way that others come in contact with love from just being around you.

There are two groups you need to be especially sure to share God’s love with: new people and people who are not involved.

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” Matthew 5:46-47

One of the core elements that separates a healthy body of believers from an unhealthy one is how they treat visitors. It is easy to say you want visitors and you want more people to have an intimate relationship with Christ, but do you live that? Do you truly welcome them and try to get to know them or do you just say hi for a second and then go back to talking with your friends? Do you try to form relationships and connections through which you can help someone become the godly person they were meant to be? Or are you busy loving those who love you. Are you hanging out with the people who are like you? Are you being a modern tax collector?

Truly greeting someone is not merely about walking up to someone and saying hi although that is an important first step. Members of a body of believers need to take time to try and get to know and make a connection with new people. Its not merely talking about the weather or T.V., it is about trying to find out who they are. The truth is that no one person can really welcome everyone. Part of truly greeting people is about introducing them to other believers. Helping them to meet more people and feel a connection with the group as a whole. Best of all if the new person shares interests with another believer introduce the two of them let them talk about that and begin to form a bond. Not only is the person more likely to come back, but also they have someone who they can talk to and support one another is a huge part of what being the body of Christ is about.

"It is easy for a person to get completely lost in the shuffle… to be a nameless face in the crowd. To feel no sense of identity. To accept no responsibility. To drift dangerously near perilous extremes without anyone ever knowing it. That's why those of us in leadership are constantly thinking of ways to cultivate an identity, to bring people out of anonymity, to assure them that involvement includes accountability.It is easy to think that all who come for worship are involved-are being noticed and encouraged. But such is not the case" Strengthening Your Grip p.40

One of the saddest truths is that there are people who come to a group every week but never feel they belong to that body of believers. They aren’t invited to things they have no real connections with the group. They hear speakers and come to worship but they never really get to see what fellowship is about. They feel on their own sometimes just wishing they had someone to talk to. How can we let this happen? How can we ignore these people? Usually they are different perhaps by personality perhaps by interests but for some reason they have fallen through the cracks. You are called to invite them, include them, to love them. Only then can they truly begin to become who God has called them to be.

What does sharing God’s love look like in terms of greeting people? It does not look like talk to your friends you talk to every week. It does not look like accusing other people of being in a clique when you’re only interacting with your own clique. It looks like be aware of visitors and honestly trying to greet them. Trying to do more than just say hi and really trying to get to know them. Helping them to form relationships and feel that they have a place they are welcomed. It isn’t rocket science or brain surgery it is simply about taking the initiative to invite people. Both new people and uninvolved people need to be invited to become part of the group. They need to be invited to become involved in the group. They need to be invited into the ministry of Jesus Christ.

As always feel free to e-mail me with your thoughts particularly on things that really resonated with you or that you really disagreed with. I always appreciate different points of view that help to improve my understanding.

Society is content. People are happy where they are. There is no impending need to change. The world is fine just the way it’s going. But Christians are different they are counter cultural they are trying to change the world. A church is growing by 2% a year. It’s growing and that’s awesome they just need to keep that up. Continue going where they’re going. Be happy where they are. How did such a worldly view sneak into the church?

God says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 This isn’t one of those some day in heaven promises. The hungry will be filled here on earth. This is not some vague promise this is a very specific. If you hunger and thirst for righteousness you will be filled. As a church we’ve been comfortable so long we’ve forgotten what true hunger looks like. People think hungering for God means simply praying for change.

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” James 2:26 If there was a true hunger for righteousness deeds would follow faith. Try fasting for a day in prayer and you will begin to understand what hungering looks like. When you are truly ravaged by hunger you desire food as breath and will do anything to get it. But is that how people chase after righteousness? I see a lot of people pray for it. Prayer is important but if you were starving would you just pray for food or would you go looking for it? Would you pursue it until you were filled? Would you give up when your first attempt failed?

People complain that God doesn’t move the way he used to. Does it ever occur to them that people don’t hunger for God the way they used to? The modern believer would call for a breather after wrestling with God for 20 minutes in the desert. There is a halfhearted commitment and a halfhearted desire. People say they want and pray for opportunities to outreach, but how do they treat those opportunities? They talk to their friends about whether they say Soda or Pop. Would Jesus have stood for this hypocrisy? I know building relationships is important but its only building a relationship if the relationship is going somewhere. Somewhere along the way people got tricked into building bridges to nowhere. Into following the motions and missing the cross.

God's people no longer hunger for righteousness because they have been brought up on a diet of mediocrity. They are content to feed themselves on being good people, but good people don't change the world. Change comes from regaining the hunger and not being content with life as usual. That's when God will fill us with his spirit, with his righteousness and turn this world upside down.

As always feel free to e-mail me with your thoughts particularly on things that really resonated with you or that you really disagreed with. I always appreciate different points of view that help to improve my understanding.