I have so much to say on the subject of many things today. I don’t know exactly where to start, though. Do I start out by venting and end on a positive note? Or should I start out on the positive and end by venting? Or should I skip the venting and just try to make this encouraging? Sometimes being a writer carries tremendous pressure. Then again, it’s my blog. I get to pick the topic and set the tone. You can choose not to read it if you want, and that’s ok with me.
Some of the things I have on my mind:
Why do churches have church vans if they aren’t going to run a bus ministry? Did God give you that bus so that it could sit in the parking lot? People driving by the church can see it and say, “Oh look, what a nice church van. I bet they have a great bus ministry. God bless them for picking up kids and bringing them to church.” That’s not why God gave you the church van. He blessed you with that so that you could be a blessing to others. Everything is God’s anyway, we are just “managers” of His stuff. He entrusted you with the van because He expects you to use it to glorify Him. And while we’re on the subject of bus ministries, who says that you can only pick up kids? How many people do you know these days who don’t have a car or can’t afford to put gas in the one they have?
Now let’s take a walk inside the church building, shall we? We’ll start out in the kitchen and fellowship hall. What purpose does that serve in your church? Are you using it to feed anyone? I bet you have at least a couple hungry families in your community. I’m sure there are kids in your Wednesday night class who haven’t had a meal since the microscopic lunch they ate at school eight hours ago. Why would you build a church with a kitchen if you aren’t going to feed anyone? It’s nice to have in the event of a wedding, I guess.
I could go on and on, but you get my point. Hopefully. Don’t get me wrong, I love my church and the people in it, but we have all these resources that we aren’t using and we expect God to just send people to us. God didn’t say “Build a building and buy a van and I’ll send people to you.” He said to go OUT to where they are, meet their needs, bring them IN using the van I blessed you with, and use the kitchen you built to feed them. It’s not worded like that in any of the translations, but that’s the point it makes. The Bible says that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27 NIV). I don’t know about you, but I want what I do to be seen as pure and acceptable to God. Playing church is not good enough. Kneeling at the altar and praying for God to send people through the doors is not going to cut it. We have to go INTO the harvest field (Matthew 9:37-38 NIV).
Tornadoes & Rainbows 