Tuesday, January 21,
2014
The ground is
level at the foot of the cross!
Of course the sentence means that all persons, rich, poor, old or young
come to Christ the same way – by humbling your heart and confessing Jesus as
your Lord[1]. And, according to the trustworthy Gospel, we
are also kept on level ground that way.
But it’s easy to catch the fever.
Church Growth Fever
Pastors are mostly to blame.
Somehow the entrepreneurial fever sets-in on most preachers and we’re
off to the races to build the biggest church since Solomon’s temple. One denominational leader in the Florida
Baptist Convention told me years ago that he’d determined …to build a roof over [my]
church’s 19 acres…and I came really close to accomplishing it. Of course, the rest of his story includes him
almost losing his family over the frantic push to create his religious empire. The fever has a cost!
Now, I’m not slinging mud here – I’ve done my part to force-bloom
a church. Truth be told, when the
“nickels and noses-counting” becomes more important than praising and serving,
it throws the whole foundation of the church “off-level and off-center”.
Been there Done THAT!
(More accurately – I’m done WITH that!)
Don’t get me wrong here; it’s not that I don’t want to see the
church(es) I serve grow. There’s nothing
holy about a church remaining small; particularly if it’s fear or prejudice against
“big”. It’s still my bedrock conviction
that a healthy church will grow. But I’m
much more interested in seeing the church healthy than prosperous.
I’m with the Psalmist – I love the Lord’s house, His
dwelling. I love the level-ground of
brothers and sisters living and loving in harmony, singing a magnificent life-song
of praise to the Lord.
What I reject is the corporate model, with the Pastor as CEO, driving
sheep like they are worker-bees to be deployed, so we can have more noses under
the roof and nickels in the offering plate.
God created us equal and if I am to exercise genuine leadership, it
will be without agenda or blueprints in hand; it will be simply to praise God
in, and with, the full assembly of His people.
And that is powerful, whether it is 35 in the pews on a Sunday, or
3,500. If God is being lifted up,
praised and honored, the ground is exceedingly level!
Today
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