Like a lot of you, I’ve been thinking about change lately. It seems to the be the hot topic this time of the (new) year.
Change, metamorphosis, reconstruction, transformation, modification, refinement, revolution—whatever you want to call it—is usually a painful proposition. At the very least it is uncomfortable.
But, if change is done with purpose and is planned out ahead of time with and end goal in mind, it can be one of the most beneficial of life-experiences.
Take, for instance, my own recent changes in the way I “do” internet communication. I put off jumping on the Gmail bandwagon for a while—holding onto my work and home email addresses because they were all set up with my workflow. I finally saw the light, and merged all my emails into one Gmail account, and I’ve never looked back or regretted the choice. It took a few days to get it all set up just the way I wanted, and I still do minor tweaks here and there, but it’s been nothing but a beneficial change. My email system has never been more clean and productive before.
To read blogs via RSS, I was a longtime user of Bloglines. Again, it was set up just the way I like it, and I really didn’t want to go through the pain of transferring hundreds of feeds over to a new service. When push came to shove I made the switch, spending a few hours during a slow evening to make the transfer to Google Reader. Yet again, it took some short-term work on my part, but the reading experience has been far superior.
I think so often we choose to NOT change because we’re unwilling to pay the cost. When it comes to doing the work of the Lord—work that will profit the Church and His Kingdom—we know what we need to change and we’re familiar with the plan of action, but the personal discomfort involved for transformation is more than we’re willing to pay.
A couple of Sundays ago I had the opportunity to preach to our people, and I gave them a challenge for 2009. I asked them to set aside whatever resolutions they were thinking about for the year and take on a much higher calling. I asked each and every person in our congregation that day to identify at least one person they would like to see come to Christ and/or get involved in church. This one person will be their focus for 2009 in terms of reaching out in the love of Christ.
Imagine a church where every person within was reaching one other individual a year. It doesn’t sound like much, but it has the potential to make a church double in size each and every year. Even a small church could be a mega church inside ten years with that kind of growth.
It’s exactly what I told the congregation that day. There is absolutely no excuse for any church anywhere—regardless of situation—to not be growing. If any church is not growing, it is the fault of the church members.
Church growth starts with the people. Period.
I’m looking forward to 2009 in anticipation of change—necessary change—taking place in our church. Honestly, I’m a little scared of what might (or might not) happen, but I’m praying that our church will experience a radical transformation so that we can stand before the Lord and hear Him say, “Well done.”
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