Are we reaching our community?

All I can say is the Lord opened my eyes yesterday to some things going on in our churches that we need to look at immediately. While at Pastor's school Eric Gieger spoke to us for a few moments. He helped write th book "Simple Church". I have not read this book but I will be very soon. Basically what Eric told us stems from this verse:

Matthew 22:37-40
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”


The commandment above is very simple....love God with all you have and love those around you. Now I want you to know that when I hear someone speak that I have never heard before I am very skeptical until I can prove that person is solid in his faith of Jesus Christ. Well it did not take Eric Gieger long to show me he was solid and what he said is so simple but yet so very true. So here is what he siad to us in a nut shell. Eric said we have become so complex in our churches that we have become inneffective in the most crucial area for all of us our own community. The way he proved this too us was to think about our churches and all the programs and ministries we have going on. So I did that and was thinking yeah we are doing good we are very busy for the Lord. The Eric went on to say we are so busy doing things that we are not being effective in doing the second part of the commandment above......love your neighbor. My first gut reaction was we are reaching our neighbor!!! But as Eric explained in more detail how folks in our own community are not being reached with gospel of Jesus Christ and how folks in our communities are hurting and their needs are not being met I had to start doing some real thinking and admit we are not being as effective as we need to be....is your church??? Are you growing? Are you bringing folks to Jesus. Are you loving your neighbors? Are you meeting the needs of those who are hurting? The answeres to these questions area good indicator.

So what do we do? It is really simple to be honest. Evaluate your ministries and vision. Then we need to cut anything that does not lead us to the direction of our mission. For example if you are doing something that has basically no effect of reaching anyone for Christ and reaching out to the needs of others we need to cut that program and use our resources more effectivly. We have so many programs in our churches these days that do nothing for the cause of Christ. I hope I have explained this well enough for you to get what I am trying to say this morning. Jesus siad the two greatest commandments are Love God and Love our neighbor. Are we as the church loving our neighbors and doing all we can to reach them or are we more like a country club???? Are we reaching our community? Honestly evaluate... it may hurt but we must get busy doing what Jesus has told us to do!

Simplify and focus.....would do a church good.

Praying for you!

Tom