I had the privilege to reap the rewards of the Mission, yesterday. A family that we have ministered to here in our church is bringing lost people to the Lord and to church. I had the honor of sharing Christ with most of them and baptizing most of them. Now, I wasn’t the one who had laid all of the ground work in their lives and I deserve no glory. None of us does, when we gain new brothers and sisters. The glory is always the Lord’s.

Anyway, they are now at work on the Mission, themselves. They have taken responsibility to share Christ with friends and are bringing them into the fellowship of the church. Yesterday they stopped me after the morning service and introduced me to a young man (their guest) who wanted to be baptized. I took him, the family father and son into my office and we talked through why he would want such a thing.

To make a long story short, he was a little confused, but everything got “nailed down” yesterday. We are going to visit him and his grandparents, with whom he lives, this afternoon. Pray for us as we reach out to them and look to bring them into the fold.

This is our Mission. We are to reach the lost of the world and bring them into the body so that they may be discipled. How tragically have we lost sight of this?

My blog has had “The Barbarian Way” by Erwin McMannus posted as my current read for more than a week, now. Well, I still have yet to crack that book. I was about to start when a friend recommended that I pick up “Eating the Elephant” by Thom Rainer and Chuck Lawless. This appears to be an update of a previous release.

Now I have read a few “church growth” books in my time, but this one really seems to have jiggled my thoughts. Primarily, it has echoed and reshaped some thoughts I have been having on the organization and structure of the church myself.

The main tenet, with which I must agree, is that the structure is not the primary problem of any church. It is the focus of the church that becomes the root of all problems. Have we got God’s heart for the lost in the forefront of our minds? When we are able to do that, we can move toward whatever programming we may need. If we truly value the lost, we will give up our own comfort and be willing to risk much to get the job done.

If the lost are not our primary concern, then we will be selfish and desire for our comfort to be protected – even when it jeopardizes the lost. Not that we would willingly jeopardize the lost. It is just that we will not be focused on them, but we focus on ourselves.

This deep truth needs to be the heart’s call for each of us personally, for our churches and for our denomination and its institutions. We must focus outward. The distractions of our day reveal our failure to be about the Mission, caused by our focus on our own comfort zones instead.

“If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” – Jesus

Not us, Lord, but You. Not our values, Lord, but Yours. Not our passions, Lord, but Yours. As You laid down your life for the lost, and as we were once lost but now rescued, let us lay down our lives for the lost around us and for those who are not around us, but are within our reach.

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