Trading Consumerism for Calling

I have to say that I am so excited about this past weekend. I took a couple of days at the end of last week to hang out with the elders of the church in a mini-retreat to pray, study, relax, plan, etc. For me it was a very meaningful time and I really enjoyed experiencing how God moved and for the work that we accomplished over those two days. God is doing something that is nothing short of awesome in our local congregation and I am so excited to simply be a part of it!

On Saturday, we worked all morning hanging a new projector at the church. I was sure that it would take only about 30 minutes, and I was dumb enough to make that prediction to Cherie in our conversation as I was leaving the house. Somewhere between the third and forth hour of the project I decided that I'm not going to make anymore assessments as to the time it will take to do projects in the future!

Overall though, the thing that I am so happy about is the recent change that we have made in the meeting on Sundays toward teaching verses simply preaching. I think we are living in a time where the body of Christ needs more than just an exposition of three points sandwiched between a catchy introduction and a conclusion. Not condemning it....just my opinion. Our members need to be fed, educated and most importantly equipped with the message to take it into their world. Simply preaching at them on Sunday is not going to win the cultural war that is raging outside of our church buildings. Emotional sermons mean nothing if they can't be carried out the door. What good is it if you walk out the door on an emotional high, but have forgotten 95% of what was said by the time you put your keys in the ignition?

A friend sent me a link today to a CNN article talking about the decline of Christianity in the US. On the heals of this, tonight while I was studying, I discovered that simply by immigration, tangent faiths (New Age, etc.), Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam are growing at four times (400%) the rate of Christianity in our country. That troubles me, because the majority of Christians that I know have little if no training to confront this. That is why we are so adamant about getting the knowledge in the hands, hearts and heads of the folks at Cornerstone Church.

So if and when you visit: be aware that we've traded our chairs being stacked neatly in a row, for tables, Bibles, notebooks and pencils to educate and equip each member for the ministry that God has called them to. Cherie was making the observation the other night at one of the Life group meetings (these are the small groups that meet in the homes during the week) that in all of the churches where we have served, just a handful of people actually are engaged in doing ministry. This is the first place we have ever been where the overwhelming majority of the congregation is just as, if not more, active in ministry than we are. It is a fact that in most churches less than 20% of the people do 80% of the ministering. That percentage is even smaller in the mega church movement. No wonder our churches are in decline. We've traded consumerism for "the calling". I pray that our congregation continues to be a place where people don't come to see "what they can get out of it", but rather come to be equipped to go out and give.