i was talking to my mother a few days ago about how much she paid to repair an office printer. i was quite surprised that anyone would choose to repair something that essentially was a throw away item. to make matters worse, i had just purchased a new, much higher quality printer the day before for about half of the cost of her repair.
now i mean no disrespect to my mother. in fact the idea of repairing what you have instead of tossing it away is something that we all should practice more, except for the case of cheap printers and sometimes churches and/or church services.
i hear people so often say that they are trying and struggling to get their church to change to reach more or different people..in other words to repair it. now maybe you just want to be more purpose driven or contemporary, but what if you also want to be more tattoo friendly or pierced friendly or green spiked hair friendly (don't forget that jesus died for them and has a plan for their life too). will that ever happen even with an unlimited amount of church counsel meetings or focus groups or whatever pop-business-church-psyche name you want to call it? probably not.
then why do we do it? why not be faithful to what the Father has called you to do. why not empower believers to go reach these people where they are and on their terms. quit paying $100 to fix a $25 problem. there are no medals in heaven for "sticking it out" in a problematic church, but there are some for discipling the lost and for giving your life to kingdom work. don't wake up one day and realize what could have been or the lives that could have been changed by allowing the Father's love to flow through you. don't give all of that ministry up in trade for wanting one more praise chorus during the sunday 10a holy hour. dust off your feet and move on...today.
christ has come to set you free, so quit putting your chains back on.
