WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Having just come through 40 Days of Community there is much that we have learned and much that we have experienced.  Throughout the campaign we have been challenged to fulfill the purposes of God, not alone, but together.  God has a plan for our lives and a purpose that he wants us to fulfill.  But God never intended that we fulfill this plan alone.  As individuals we are a part of the whole. 

God wants us to reach out together to touch our world with the good news of Jesus Christ.  He wants us to grow in grace and truth.  Again, this is something that we will do best as we do it together, especially in the context of the small groups. 

Fellowshipping together is an important part of God’s plan for us.  We belong to each other and we need each other. 

Becoming disciples and making disciples has always been a part of God’s purpose for our lives.  Discipleship means growing spiritually.  It means becoming more and more like Christ.  And we learned that we grow faster and we grow stronger—together! 

We learned also that when Christ came here to earth, he came not to be served but to serve.  He gave us the ultimate example of what true service is and as his disciples we have been called to serve one another. 

Of course one of the primary reasons that we are here on earth is to glorify and worship God.  We worship God by singing to Him, by talking to Him, by publically identifying with Him and by giving to Him.  God of course does not need our money, but He does want the love that is expressed in and through our giving. 

Now, having learned and experienced these lessons, our next question is WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

I believe that having established a solid base of small groups along with all our other programs and having maintained our solid doctrinal base, we have the means to move forward.  Rev. James Meeks in his lecture entitled ENEMIES OF A GROWING CHURCH, maintains that everything planted in the Kingdom of God is supposed to grow—especially the church.  He mentioned ten obstacles to growth and I would like to point out a few of them as they relate to us. 

The first enemy of a growing church is A LACK OF FAITH.  In order for growth to happen we must believe it can happen.  However, we not only must believe it CAN happen we must expect it TO happen. 

Closely related to that is the second obstacle, a LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.    Perhaps we don’t expect things to happen because we don’t know that growth is possible.  In France, where the work has been slow and difficult, pastors back in the 1980s had to be taken to the Thailand refugee camps in order for them to believe the number of conversions that were taking place.  They had just never seen anything like that happen before.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is our God today.  Just as God worked in the past, so God is working today.  We do not need to circle the wagons and hunker down behind them. We need to trust him and move out. 

We need to understand also that GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS.  God does not love certain people more than others.  He does not love Billy Graham, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels more than he loves us.  The physical and spiritual laws that apply to Rick Warren apply also to us and vice versa.  If you jump from the top of a skyscraper you will crash to the bottom.  And as Rev. Meeks put it, if Rick Warren jumps from a skyscraper there will be Purpose Driven guts all over the sidewalk.  The laws and principles of church growth will work for every person, no matter who he is.  Rev. Meeks reminds us also that growth is not limited to certain areas, population groups or ethnicities.  Growth can take place in rural areas as well as large urban areas.  It can take place in the largely white population of Maine as well as in an all black neighborhood of the Southside of Chicago. 

What we need to do is GET STARTED, move forward and BUILD ON OUR SMALL VICTORIES.  Small victories will lead to bigger victories.  When we see God do little things, we can expect him to do big things.  We should never forget that David defeated the lion and the bear before he defeated Goliath.  As we seek to develop a growing church for the Glory of God; God will honor that desire and bless his most precious possession, the church.