Something Amazing Happened at our Church!

Something truly amazing happened at our church yesterday. Our pastor actually told us that he wants some of us to leave! (He jokingly added that he had a list.) But why would he do such a thing? In this day and age of doing anything for church growth and where numbers are everything, why on earth would he say he wanted some of his people to leave?

Well, we had a guest preacher yesterday. He is the fairly new pastor of a church that our church planted fourteen years ago. That church has had many ups and downs and a lot of struggling to stay alive. Our pastor was asking some of us to prayerfully consider going to that church to strengthen it and help it grow.

What an incredible and rare attitude that displays! Are we really one body? Do we really care when part of the body is struggling or hurting? Do we really want Christ's kingdom to be extended?

Since the service yesterday I've thought quite a bit about this and the dynamics involved. What keeps us from launching out on great adventures, to put our shoulder to the wheel, for the sake of God's kingdom? What keeps us from heading out to the mission field to serve the lost and point them to Christ? Is it the same thing that would keep us from driving across town to another excellent church to lend a hand in building it up? I very much fear that it might be. I think it might just be that we're too comfortable where we are and couldn't be bothered.

How different that is from the attitude of our Savior!

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant...and humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8

Thank God that Christ bothered to leave the comfort [read: glorious, worshipful perfection] of heaven for our sakes! Can we not, as His people, follow His example?