When lesser gods controls the Mission!

Mission is languishing between Felt Need and the Real Need. There is a misconception among Churches and Mission organizations that lack of money is the number one reason for the gospel yet to reach the ends of the earth. A casual survey or discussion would confirm this truth that money tops the list as potential risk apart from various other threats for the gospel to reach every person on earth. Apparently, money becomes the crucial prayer point.

When Jesus along with His disciples was taking the good news to all the villages, towns, and cities, He saw the need for workers not money. He says,"...the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into his harvest." Matthew 9:37-38. Today the needs are compartmentalized that the need for people is usually downplayed. People have been replaced as crowd gatherers and money generators. This point needs our attention as “People” are the need for the mission and pastors, leaders should focus on encouraging, training, equipping, and sending people to share the gospel in their area of influence. Then every strategy will revolve around spiritual multiplication, evangelism model and approaches, etc. Christ’s mission gets skewed as it’s invariably seen from a financial perspective and every plan, strategy, approaches, proposals, and campaign is twisted trying to build wealth. Unfortunately, pastors and leaders stoop to begging, borrowing, and stealing in the name of building God’s Kingdom.

It is a sad spectacle to see widely, the lesser gods are managing the mission. Mission and Church have become a status. Leaders are living in a make-believe world that they are doing everything right and serving God when what they are really serving is money. Jesus warned us about it already. "...You cannot serve God and money." Matthew 6:24 NLT. The need for money brings along into mission all its vices like power and status. Today, models and approaches have become Organizational/Church identity. They have become Unique Selling Point (USP), to generate money. God’s mission happens to be the means to accomplish their personal mission. This is exactly what upset God with the shepherds through prophet Isaiah, "These dogs have fierce appetites; they never have enough. And they are shepherds who have no discernment; all of them turn to their own way, every last one for his own profit.". Isaiah 56:11 CSB.

I remember in one of the pastors’ meetings how the two mites of the poor widow were misinterpreted as money is an important component in Church Ministry because Jesus sat and watched what was being put in the offertory box. The parable of the 5000 was misinterpreted as Jesus created pressure on the disciples for food and were made to think how they can generate money and be prepared for an event like this. That pastors and leaders should know to catch the right fish to find the coin in the mouth of the fish. The heresies are so deeply rooted today that many missions, Christian Organization and Churches largely have become an enterprise and a scam.

I wonder how pastors would interpret Apostle Paul’s traumatic experience, "Five times I received the forty lashes minus one from the Jews. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the open sea. ²⁶On frequent journeys, I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, and dangers among false brothers; ²⁷ toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and without clothing. ²⁸ Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my concern for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? ³⁰ If boasting is necessary, I will boast about my weaknesses. ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows I am not lying. ³² In Damascus, a ruler under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to arrest me. ³³ So I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands." 2 Corinthians 11:24-32.

Jesus is God enthroned in majesty and there is no other demigod.  Praise God if we are not exposed to such threats. Many of us are accustomed to operating from a safe and luxurious positions some with lots of constriction and limitation. In any case Christ mission is the mandate, a commandment and a mission given to the Church and to individuals. Based on the need, God will provide resources. Do not allow the need for money to overtake and rule Christ Mission. If it happens, you start living with a shadow mission and working to mobilize money than people, and that can be too dangerous. You may want to read my blog I wrote about SHADOW MISSION. This is the matter of the heart and personal retrospection. Can we abandon any god's that have the power to rule us? I want to leave you with this verse for making a personal commitment with God our Saviour. "O Lord our God, Lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee alone will we make mention of thy name.". Isaiah 26:13 KJV. May we stay focused to the true Mission, sincerely. 

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Cycle of the Christian Life!

 

Jude, the shortest book in the Bible, prioritizes on three responsibilities of a Christian. It is part of his conclusion in exhortation and benediction section. He shows the interdependency in relationships and their impact. Let’s review some verses to make my point.

Jude 1 identifies the author of the book as Jude, brother of James. This likely refers to Jesus' half-brother, as Jesus also had another half-brother named James (Matthew 13:55). Jude probably does not identify himself as a brother of Jesus out of humility and reverence for Christ. The Book of Jude is closely related to the book of 2 Peter. The date of authorship for Jude depends on whether Jude used content from 2 Peter, or vice versa.

The Book of Jude was written somewhere between A.D. 60 and 80. It is an important book for us today as it portrays the end times, and the end of the church age, which began at the Day of Pentecost. Jude is the only book given entirely to the great apostasy. He writes that evil works are the evidence of apostasy. He admonishes us to contend for the faith, as there are tares among the wheat. False prophets are in the church and the saints are in danger. Jude is a small but important book worth studying as its written for the Christian of today.

As we carefully read the verses 20 -23 in Jude, it draws the ultimate responsibility of every believer in the Church and of the Church as an entity. The big three responsibilities of the church categorized in these verses are as follows:

1.     Inspire every believer to remain in faith.

V 20-21 “But you, dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life.”

Growing in the faith results in multiple expressions. The person grows in the knowledge of the Lord and bears fruits with the focus on eternity. It is important to note that the pastor is not a superhero who can always ensure from his congregation 100% commitment to the Lord in the non-Church hours but yes, he can inspire and nurture a person enough with the uncompromising word of God and Christian ethics. Sometimes the Church tries this by keeping the people busy with the Church activities and weekly programs. And at the end making them more religious with Church sentiments and hardly making them accountable towards the Great Commission responsibilities. Diane Langberg states this, "God's purpose is not to build up spectacular ministries, or display brilliant minds, or articulate tongues or pleasing, arresting personalities. God's purpose is to make us, you and me, like his Son. It is the only outcome that brings glory to the Father.".

2.     Ignite the ones who waver from the faith.

V 22 “Have mercy on those who waver.”

Most of the time people go to Church to fulfil their weekly obligation. Sunday becomes a religious day like any other religion which has specific days in a week to observe piety. Along with it comes our offerings and few commitments, and there ends our responsibility. As Christians, are we helping the other fellow believers who are struggling in their faith due to various reason? John in his book 1 John 3:17 holds each person responsible for his fellow believer, “If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him- how does God’s love reside in him?” And Paul to the book of Romans 15:1 says, “Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves.”

3.     Influence the people to be missional outside the four walls of your Church.

 V 23 “save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”

Here comes the big mission, where Jude reminds the third big responsibility of every Christians is to save others by snatching from the fire. The who one who does not know God are racing down the highway of hell. Paul while writing to the Thessalonians states, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 “when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength.”.

As a Church are we successful in taking our people to the next level, i.e., to be effective in the marketplace? Or still struggling to stagnate them in the first stage, inspiring them to be in the faith. This is the best way to gauge your effectiveness and the Church’s effectiveness. Churches are stagnating in the first phase; the need of being inspired to be in the Lord. And then have convincing excuses on why they are not able to influence and inspire their friends with the gospel. One reason we lack the opportunity to share our faith is because we have little or no meaningful contact with non-Christians. Non-Christians are not hearing our message, because they’re not within the sound of our voices! The gospel hasn’t lost its power. We have simply lost their audience!

Understand the cycle of the Christian life.  You are not just responsible for your soul but also of your neighbours. 

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What are you doing with the seed?

  

By the word ‘seed’ we all know what it is meant for. The basic, straight, and specific purpose, that is grows to be sown back. We don’t need to have a degree to understand this simple idea. But in Christian world this meaning is smothered, stretched, and extended to give a new purpose and a meaning. Read this verse carefully, “Now the one who provides seed for the Sower and bread for food will also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”. 2 Corinthians 9:10 CSB. I have heard it quite often this interpretation that says money and resources given to a person are for the purpose of sowing back to receive more.

This chapter 2 Corinthians 9, urges Christians in the Corinthian church to follow through on their commitment. They had agreed to participate in a collection for suffering Christians in Jerusalem. Paul says he should not even need to write to them about the collection, which he calls the "ministry for the saints" (2 Corinthians 9:1). The offerings in the New Testament were very different from the Old Testament tithes, which is still practised and emphasized conveniently for a specific advantage. Let me clarify this. The offerings are inclusive of giving to Church, for Missions (1Timothy 5:17-18), Relief work (Acts 12:25; 1 Corinthians 16:1; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 8:7 9:12; Hebrew 13:16 and for Widows and Orphans (1 Timothy 5:3; James1:27).

Today, the concept of tithes is continued to be on the top of the Christian priority because the leaders know if the mandated percentage is removed then the giving, amounting to that 10% percentage will drop down, for sure. Therefore, this concept stays as the number one rule in the Church institution. Scripture never mandates a specific amount each Christian or church must give. Paul even refuses to name a percentage of income or belongings. Instead, God's word sets a standard according to what each person has decided to give. Well, the intention of the blog is not about inducing a conviction to make a believer give, but to sow themselves for the Great Commission; the mission Christ mandated for all.

I usually say this that the congregation is the under-utilized, unempowered, unengaged people group for the mission work. Most of the Christian research study states that more than 90% of Christians have never shared the gospel even once in their lifetime. Unfortunately, it does not alarm the body of Christ. We have robbed the congregation of its purpose for Christ’s mission. Attending the Church, week after week and paying their offerings become the top, satisfying and only priority for all the people. Pastors and Leaders, if you have people following you then they are the seeds that you need to sow back in to make them fruitful and multiplying.

In this context let me point out what Solomon questioned, “Why is there money in the hand of the fool to buy wisdom, when he has no common sense or even a heart for it?” (Proverbs 17:16 AMP) As a metaphor why is one holding the seeds as part of congregation when the leader does not use them for the right purpose. Why are they not equipped to be effective gospel sharers in their sphere of influence. Burk Parson made this powerful statement, “Just because there's a church building on every corner doesn't mean the gospel is preached on every corner.”. Church is the people, the disciple of Christ, the word overused little more than 260 times than the word Christians which is used only 3 times in the New Testament. Discipleship today, has become a training program and a certification course. Dear Church, don’t just hold them accountable for not paying the Church offerings or failed attendance for the Church activity, but for sharing the gospel which is everyone’s responsibility. Every individual is a mobile Church, don’t institutionalize the person.  Consider the way Jesus operated. John Mac Arthur puts it beautifully, “Jesus' entire ministry was in the street, in the field, in other people’s homes, in synagogues, on the road, on the sea, with only occasional retreats into isolation to restore His energy, rest His body, and fellowship privately with His disciples.”. Jesus' purpose is our purpose too.

Remember the parable of the talent, which is usually referred to business and exhibiting one’s skill set, but what if it is about the seed the people. We are supposed to be used for discipleship and multiplication. Many are like the guy with one talent preserved it safe and were called useless. We know how he was condemned to eternal damnation. “And throw this good-for-nothing servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 25:30 CSB. Our responsibility lies in sowing the seed to get the maximum produce as said in John 12:24 "Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.".

 

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Gospel becoming a choice and convenience for many!

 

This blog https://liferedefined4god.blogspot.com/?m=1 is committed to ignite Churches and the good believers to move from their safe comfort zone and be where they are supposed to be. If you carefully notice you would find that we are often a good Church believer but a failed disciple maker. The reason I keep emphasising on this topic on mission is because the Great Commission, the mandate of Christ has been successfully substituted with “good” programs that has the potential to build spiritual life, ensure active participation in the Churches and build financial security as the result of people’s participation. The Church is happening but the going out never gained momentum at all and in most cases stagnated, and worst polluted. Probably some of the below mentioned reasons can help the people to move from the common spiritual fallacies.

The world of the Church members is the Church and Christian Circle: Every attention of the Church member is Church focused and limited to Christian association only.  Is it bad? Not at all, but what has happened is that they failed to see the world around them. Either they are misled or hijacked.  The world is among us – as our neighbours, our co-workers, friends, and relatives – but we fail to see them as sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36). Somehow, we hear the words of the Great Commission without recognizing the opportunities around us to develop gospel-centred friendship.

Pastors fail to model the Great Commission task: Leaders whose ministries are built on the Bible often do proclaim the mandate. Unless a pastor bleeds for his neighbours and the nations to know Christ, the church he leads will not live out this burden. Most often the Sunday 2 to 3 hours Church Service depending on your Church Culture and denomination becomes the priority. The success of the Church, meetings are only gauged by the attendance, participation, and offerings, which is the ABC model i.e., Attendance, Building and Cash. How can one expect their Church members to reach out in their sphere of influence? Failure to see the passion in their Pastors and Church leaders for soul have doused their hunger for souls.

Churches tell them to go, without teaching them how. My experience in working closely with Churches and leaders from around the world I have noticed this, though many churches tell the people to share the gospel with their neighbours but seldom train them to do so. People are challenged to go to the nations without adequately assuring them of training and support. When we tell without teaching, we shouldn’t be surprised when our churches only talk about the Great Commission.

When people are seen as asset and source of income. As hard as this statement sounds, it is true. The believers are seen as income source that is why if a believer especially a big giver stops attending his usual Church, they are sought in all possible manner to ensure they are back. The false ideology that if he has stopped coming to his Church and goes to other fellowships they are seen as lost and will never make it to eternal home. The Church is regretting because the person is probably a major income source. These are bitter truths but is a common spectacle.  This is not a problem for the Mega Church. Here, people find the Church for affiliation and identity. You can come anytime and can choose to stay anonymous and may even stop anytime. You will never be noticed.

Today, sharing the gospel has become a matter of convenience and the last priority for many, in general. Hardly people are thinking about it. In such situations it forces me to question their encounter with Christ they claim in the first place. One cannot experience the gift of salvation and not talk about it. Something is seriously amiss, don’t you think so? Peter and John in the worst situation when they were threatened and warned to not speak about Christ said this, "for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:20 CSB. This is the language of the disciple. Probably if I must rephrase in today's context then it would go like this, "we are unable to stop speaking about what we have experienced and what the Bible tells us to do". The Early Church had one top priority and that is to share Christ. What is your Church priority? How many people are active in sharing the gospel in your Church today? You have all programs to build them spiritually. But what does that mean if he/she has not been able to lead one person to Christ. Think about it!

 

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Effective discipleship Strategy!

 

If you are assuming that the purpose of the Church, is branding the Church building with your registered denominational tag and making the Church building visible for the world, and keeping the people busy with programs, then probably you have got it all wrong. The goal of ministry isn’t to keep people busy in church activities—the goal is to equip people to become more like Christ and live out their purpose as part of the body of Christ.

Our natural tendency is to think we need to offer more ministries and more programs to encourage more steps of spiritual formation, but that is faulty thinking: Over 500,000 church attenders from more than 2,000 churches participated in the Reveal survey, which gives us a clearer picture of how people take steps toward Christ. The data specifically found: “Increased church activity does not lead to spiritual growth.”

Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson wrote about the learnings from this research in the book, Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal About Spiritual Growth, “Unfortunately, churches often make things harder by obscuring the goal—to become more like Christ—with a complicated assortment of activities… When the church incessantly promotes all the things people should do, it’s very easy for them to lose sight of the real goal—which is who they should become.”

Tony Morgan in helping the Churches to move from Program to real impact, states this, “The Key to Ineffective Discipleship: Programs”. And he says this, while churches should be in the disciple-making business, they often have no intentional discipleship strategy. Instead, churches tend to opt for a program-driven model that simply ends up keeping their people busy in church activities.

When churches take this program-driven approach, it creates several challenges:

·        Ministries within a church start competing with each other for people’s time and attention.

• It feeds a consumer-mindset where the church promotes programs and events for people to attend rather than equipping people to do God’s work.
• Churches continue to add programs as the church grows, creating additional complexity.
• People are made to just pay to the Church with a sense of obligation without a conviction to participate in the actual mission. i.e., share the gospel in the sphere of their influence.

The solution to this challenge is to move from programs to a path. And the path or the journey is to equip the people to be a disciple-maker, not a Sunday crowd where the Church is benefited with all types of offering and all leave satisfied. Establishing a clear Discipleship Path is all about helping people move from where they are now to where God wants them to be. Everyone has a next step they can take:

A person new to faith may need to concentrate on biblical teaching and spiritual disciplines.

A more mature Christian may need to take steps toward reaching those outsides of the faith.

Each step on the Discipleship Path must have an easy to access on-ramp. I want to refer to Tony Morgan’s 5 stages of people’s journey.

Stage 1- Not interested.

Stage 2- Spiritually Curious

Stage 3- Believer

Stage 4- Being discipled.

Stage 5- Disciple Maker

When the Church finds where their members are and slowly move towards the final stage which is to equip them as a disciple maker you then actually fulfil the purpose of the Church.

In most of the churches today, we have a measurement problem. It’s not necessarily with finances or attendance, but with the one thing we’re tasked with doing: making disciples.

 

This raises two fairly important questions:

What does spiritual progress look like?

And how can we help people recognize movement in their own journey?

When our initiatives revolve around the 5 stages and move people from stage 1 to stage 5 the true purpose of the body of Christ is made complete. The Church is the only hope for the dying world and that means every believer is equipped to be a disciple maker and a missionary for Christ.

  

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When Mission is limited to strategy alone!

 

Strategy has recently found increased relevance and used to accelerate, accomplish, and achieve their desired goals. However, it is misused and misrepresented, misleading people. Being a strategist myself, developing Ministry Church blueprint and a roadmap, helping Churches and ministries in developing strategy documents for many Churches and Organisations, I noticed some assumed that their Church / ministries have not done well in the past because they either did not have a strategy or probably the present one is ineffective.

Using this word in the context of Church and Missions is good, but I don’t think it is all about strategy and activities alone. The Bible gives us so many patterns (good, bad and no pattern) of strategies and models. Unfortunately, some focus on one strategy and miss the true representation of God.  I have noticed some leaders judge my efficiency of my skill by wanting to know if I could show a strategy that worked. But what they fail to understand is that strategy by itself doesn’t work, the intention, motivation and conviction to the mission are some of the key factors that complement the process.

Let me place before you few incidents from the Bible which did right but failed. Probably you can say, they used the right strategy yet fell flat.

1.  Incident where the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon: In Matthew 17:14-20 When Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a mountain to reveal His glory, a man brings his demon possessed son to the rest of the disciples. The disciples fail, so the man approaches Jesus and Jesus easily casts it out of the boy. After he heals the boy, the disciples privately ask Jesus why they could not cast out the demon (V 19-20). What do you think? These disciples who were with Jesus, by now so accustomed to how Jesus was doing yet failed to cast out the demon. It just shows that it was not just the skill but something more than that. Jesus responds that it was because of the little faith, and few other versions which has Verse 21 states this, “however, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”.  Prayer and fasting are not the result of a strategy but relationship and reliance on God. Today, sadly you will get to see today prayer has become a merchandise, a program, activity, and an event.

3.  Sons of Sceva (Acts 19:11-16): Here Luke records the many unusual miracles happening by the hands of Paul. In verse 12 it records, “so that even handkerchiefs of aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them”. Probably many today assume it to be a strategy to be followed. Since it looks such a simple strategy probably the sons of Sceva wanted to replicate it. Yes, as a strategy it looked so simple to just use the name of Jesus, heal the people and cast the demons out. The sons of Sceva tried it, this is what it happened. (Verse 15 & 16) “And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”. This is so true of current times where people have a superficial relationship with Christ Jesus and yet use His name deceptively for spiritual ambience. Paul to the book of Timothy states about such people as “having a form of godliness but denying its power…” 2 Timothy 3:5.

3.  Demon possessed slave girl in Mission (Acts 16:16-18): An incident where a slave girl who was possessed by the spirit predicted the future for her owner and brought large profit encounters Paul and Silas was making this powerful mission statement. Acts 16:17 “…These men, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation, are the servants of the Most High God.”. Was she deviating from the gospel? Absolutely not! But Paul had to command the spirit to stop the annoyance and come out of her. And it left her right away. Acts 16:18. Many are using His name right, using Jesus’ model right, but still are not a voice that can impact transformation. They need to be transformed first to use the mission rightly. Even demons can preach gospel and say the right thing as seen here but God doesn’t recognize such people at all.

Many missions, Church ministries, and leaders are assuming that a better plan, best model and an effective tool is the solution for global mission. I think it is time to have a relook at the perspective. Our God is a holy God. Stop improvising models, strategies, activities and hoping it is going to bring revival by the way we do things. There are many things that needs to be addressed at the heart level to make a serious impact. Would you consider doing so?

 

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Church Institution Part-3

 

In my last blog we were seeing why Jesus did not choose to centralize institutionalizing of the Church. You can click HERE in case you missed to read the last blog. Kindly stay with me as I conclude on this topic. 

If you carefully observe you will notice that Jesus constantly reiterated the purpose of His coming. The purpose of Jesus was straight and direct. It says, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10. In order this to happen He had to go to all places. After being in a particular place sharing about the Kingdom of God and showing who the Messiah is, Jesus’ next destination was always the next village, the next town where they don’t know about the Messiah.  In Mark 1:35-37 it talks about Jesus going to a deserted place early in the morning and was praying. But by then the crowd found the way to His place, looking for Him. I guess the disciples were constantly living in excitement to have large crowds waiting to hear Jesus and to be ministered. In Verse 36 it says, Simon and his companions searched for him, and when they found him, they said “Everyone is looking for you.” Verse 37 And he said to them, “Let’s go on to the neighbouring villages so that I may preach there too. That is why I have come”.

Jesus reiterates the purpose of His coming again and again. I guess Jesus was not interested to give the same message in a new package to the same crowd day after day or week after week. That will sound churchianity, where people would visit the Church, every week get excited and go back to never share the gospel. In Matthew 8:18 Again we notice this happening, “When Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave orders to go to the other side of the sea.” Jesus knew the crowds will always be there but then once He ministered in a particular place Jesus preferred to go the next place where He is still unfamiliar.

Fellowship with the believers on a weekly basis is a great idea but then people come together to comfort each other, love each other, help each other and then they are gone. In many cases even this is not a reality. Why do we say the Church is the only hope for the dying world when all we have is only Christian brothers and sisters surrounded. Today, the Churches are becoming a good moral school where constantly the members are taught how to live good life, morally teaching them how to love one another, and so many how to's... but never how to share the gospel and holding individuals accountable on the responsibility of sharing the gospel.

Today, the Church in many cases is nothing more than a structure or a building facility and sadly even that in most cases mired in property disputes. The institutionalization Church comes in various types of offering. Basically, money takes the top priority. And we show to people that if they pay more offering, more tithes, they will receive more blessings.

Most of the people who started with a great passion to reach out to people with the gospel soon settled with this concept of Church. And then with the sustainable income source from the people the Church culminates to an institution under a particular denominational bracket. Thereafter, the rest of their lives pastors with the floating numbers keep managing the crowd so that they are faithful to their version of Church. All survive except the Christ mission. Paul Washer puts this thought brilliantly, “The ministry has become so driven by business and entertainment that many of the men who now stand behind pulpits would do a better as corporate heads on Wall Street or entertainers in Hollywood.”

Don't mistake me that I am saying Church buildings are unnecessary. What am I questioning, why the purpose of the Church today has become so murky? Why aren't our congregation who are supposed to be teachers, speakers by now still need milk? (Hebrew 5:14)

We want to think and believe Church buildings attract people to hear the gospel. If this was true Jesus would have at the foremost made a connection and asked His converts to attend the existing temple with its grandeur. Instead, He was seen calling people to follow Him. Soon we learn Jesus prophesized the demolition of the temple. Matthew 24:2 “Do you see all these things? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down.”. Jesus replaced the place with a movement.

Even in the Old Testament the Lord showed Prophet Isaiah an important thing. Prophet Isaiah apprises what the Lord said to him with great power.  Isaiah 8:13-14 “You are to regard only the Lord of Armies as holy. Only he should be feared only he should be held in awe. He will be a SANCTUARY; . . .”  Currently, the Church space has taken all the credibility. Christians respect church buildings more than Jesus and His mission. The church isn’t a building to be maintained, it’s a people to be mobilized. Let us not forget that all Christ’s disciples and His followers took the risk of going to all parts of the world and proclaim about the resurrected Jesus and being martyred for their faith. They wanted others to experience what they have found. Think about it! Let me leave with the thought by Leonard Ravenhill, "the world is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity, it's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.”.

  

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