what should church look like?

sparked by some good conversations i had this weekend…

this is take two. i just deleted my first 200 words because i don’t think i was saying what i wanted to say. make sense? if not, hopefully the rest of this will.

i was blessed to have had some good conversations this weekend. i would say great conversations, but unfortunately they were cut short due to garage sale mayhem and the fact that kids don’t care about your grown-up conversation. ever notice that just about the time you’re really enjoying yourself, the kids start squawking?

anyways, both conversations were dealing with the same topic for the most part. “what was that topic”, you ask? church.

back in the saddle again

i have to apologize, but unfortunately life took the priority over blogging recently…

we moved again (2nd time inside of a month) and also went on vacation. that being said, i haven’t had the chance to sit down and write any thoughts down lately.

we had a great time last week at disneyland. my daughter got to be a princess for a couple days, and my son got to fill his need for adrenaline.

while on vacation i had a chance to make it through a fair amount of a book i’ve been reading lately. the book is titled, “life-style evangelism” by joseph aldrich. i’ve really been enjoying the book and have been quite challenged by the reading of it. i believe this book is going to be a bit of a catalyst to change in the way i evangelize and the way i reach out to unbelievers.

the book also had some great insights into the function of the church in regards to evangelism. contrary to popular belief, the function of the church unit (and by that i mean the gathering of believers together) is not for the sake of evangelism. rather, the time we gather together is to build and encourage the believer to equip and prepare them for the evangelism they should be doing. i believe its quite unfortunate that so many believers think that it is their responsibility to bring unbelievers to church, and then let the church take it from there. part of this, i believe, is because the believers feel they need to be seminary graduates or have some formal training in order to be involved in the ministry. i love the story in acts 3 where peter and john heal the lame man. when they stand before the sanhedrin on trial, the observation made by the sanhedrin is that peter and john are untrained and uneducated, but that they had been with Jesus. therein is the key to ministry. before we can pour out, we must take in. sit at the feet of Jesus, spend time with Him, and then allow Him to flow through you.

on that note, take this lesson from nature. it’s something i came across years ago and have never forgotten. are you familiar with the dead sea and the sea of galilee? they are both bodies of water found in israel. the dead sea is just that – dead. nothing grows there and the area surrounding it is barren. i had the chance to visit there about 7 years ago, and let me tell you, its a suitable name. the sea of galilee, on the other hand, is full of life. there are fish, wildlife, and plants all around the area. in fact, there are huge catfish in the sea of galilee. they are an unclean fish, so they are never caught and killed, so they grow to unbelievable sizes. there is quite the contrast between the dead sea and the sea of galilee. but they are both fed by the same source, the jordan river. so what is the difference? the sea of galilee has an outlet. the jordan river flows in at the north and out at the south. the dead sea, however, has no outlet. according to my encyclopedia, there is 7 million tons of fresh water pouring into the dead sea every day. yet the dead sea has a 30% salinity, and it is always increasing in it’s salinity. that means if you filled a cup with water from the dead sea and set it out in the sun to evaporate, once all the water evaporated the cup would still be 1/3 full (salt and other minerals). amazing, huh? so don’t tell me an outlet is not needed. it is crucial to the health of a body of water, and even more critical in the life of a believer.