Monday Musings

As I prepared for the sermon I will be preaching at Pole Creek's Spring Revival, I ran across an illustration that struck me. It's a satirical article that was published in a magazine entitled Newslark. It's so true, I thought I'd summarize it for you.
"Julie & Bob Clark were stunned to receive a letter from their church asking them to "participate in the life of the church"—or worship elsewhere. "
They basically called us freeloaders," says Julie. "We were freeloaders," says Bob.
In a trend that may signal rough times for wallflower Christians, Faith Community of Winston-Salem has asked "non-participating members" to stop attending. "
No more Mr. Nice Church," says the executive pastor. "Bigger is not always better. Providing free services indefinitely to complacent Christians is not our mission."
"Freeloading" Christians were straining the church's nursery and facility resources, and harming the church's ability to reach the lost, says the pastor. "
When your bottom line is saving souls, you get impatient with people who interfere with that goal."
Faith Community sent polite but firm letters to families who attend church services and "freebie events," but never volunteer, never tithe, & don’t belong to a small group.
The church says that, of its attendees, only half volunteered in the past 3 years, and a third have never given to the church.
"Before now, we made people feel comfortable and welcome, and tried to coax them to give a little something in return," says a staff member. "That's changed. We're done being the community nanny.""
I have to confess that the letter this couple received is often the way I feel. I swear (well, not really), but I do declare that there have been times I've wanted to fire off a letter like to this... I wonder why I don't? Isn't it true? Our mission is the exalt Christ, which means we set an example of Christ-likeness in our behavior both in the world and in the church. The second half of our mission is to share Christ's love. That means we evangelize. We tell the world that Jesus offers hope. Our priority is the Great Commission. Anything that keeps us from that goal should be eliminated from our lives...
Think about it... What is our bottom line?
Many of the folks in churches today wouldn't even be missed if they stopped showing up for Sunday Meetings... Well, not in the ministry sense anyway. The budget wouldn't suffer; the ministries wouldn't suffer; the outreach would suffer; the fellowship, prayer and worship ministries wouldn't suffer. And certainly we wouldn't miss them in discipleship training. If you notice, I've just listed our six core principles. That's what we're supposed to concentrate our efforts doing. Why do we continue to allow that percentage of people who never plug into any of these things, tie up all of our time, energy, and resources? Those not involved and not contributing are always the ones moaning and complaining the most. They're the ones hypercritical of everything they don't like. So what do we do? Interesting, huh? Doesn't it seem reasonable that if we concentrated our efforts on those who were plugged in and actively participating as part of the body, we'd get more outreach done? We'd spend our time harvesting the crop instead of keeping the tractor's bursted tires inflated... What do you think? Not an easy subject is it? But I wonder how many farmers would keep their crop workers around if they never did anything but eat the fruit everybody else brought in? I'd like to hear from you... drop me an email... let me hear your take. ps - I feel like this usually on Mondays... :-/

Posted in: complacency, lack of dedication