Archive for April 21st, 2008

Well I want to start out by telling you that you must read to the end of the blog before you judge it or before you form an opinion and to be honest before you get mad if you feel that this includes you.  And to quote a fellow pastor “You have to know what you are doing is settled between you and God.  If it is then no matter what anyone else says or thinks you should not be upset because you don’t have to live up to their standard just God’s.  But then again if you are bothered by it then maybe you should examine whether God is speaking to you or not.” 

I want to be honest about some things and tell my true feelings without hurting anyone or being misunderstood.  I want to use this as a way to not only tell my feelings but also try to encourage people to take advantage of some things that I see true value in.  And please remember where my heart is, it is wanting nothing more than for myself as well as everyone else to be able to make a HUGE impact on the lost for Christ.  Just like the woman at the well I want to leave my water pot behind and go tell everyone about the Messiah.  So with that warning statement in place…here it goes!

Last night I concluded my sermon series on Relational Christianity with a sermon on Jesus and how He interacted with people other than just preaching to them.  And although I am highly critical of my own sermons, I was saddened last night but not due to the sermon but by the turn out of our congregation.   And it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was preaching but with the participation.  I see Sunday nights as a time that those who serve all day and all week for the church can come and get feed themselves.  For those that have very active roles on Sunday morning, Wednesday night and Thursday nights with E3 groups this is a time for us to sit in a chair and be feed.  To not have to serve and to just be “selfish” in a way and to just take in.  And again I, if anyone understand the busyness of life and all of the different ways that we can get pulled.  Krystal and I spend 4 nights a week being pulled in different directions  because of our kids activities and overlaps that 3 practices, 3 dance classes,  2 piano lessons, and trying to keep up with a 2 year old causes.  But isn’t that what we need during all of that chaos is to crawl up in our Father’s lap and just stop everything to be with Him.   And I know that everyone reading this can say well I had this last night or it was  cause of this last night, but again it was spurred by last night but by no means was last night a rarity.   For a church that has 140ish members we average 20-25 adults on a Sunday night.  Very quickly do the math on that, actually I already did and it is 17.87%.  Is anyone else saddened by that number?  I know that we cannot be at everything but shouldn’t our participation as a church body be higher than that?  And I know there are churches out there that have canceled Sunday night and they are going to say “See that is why we have canceled Sunday night services” but is that really the answer either?  Do we lower the bar of expectations because we have trouble meeting them?  Does God lower His expectations of righteousness because we cant meet them?    If your child makes a D in school do we suddenly start saying that D’s are okay or do we prompt them to do better?   To me; it is about effort, let’s use the analogy of the child getting a D, if they are spending their time playing video games then that is one thing, but if they are trying their hardest and still get that then that is totally a different event.  I guess I look at it in what difference it would make if the part of the congregation that never comes would try to make it 2 times a month, wonder how that would influence others or what kind of impact that would make on others.  But better yet what would it do for our church.  How much closer and bonded would we be?  Could we make a bigger impact on our community?  I don’t know the answers to those questions but I know that 17% isn’t necessarily giving our best effort either.

God Bless ~ Tyler