I get my hair cut at a little mom and pop barbershop in Madison Florida. The husband cuts the hair for the male customers and his wife cuts the hair for the females and they work side by side. I’ve become friends with them and she is a recent reader of Words for the Day. Last week she remarked that I always end WFTD with, “Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday”, and she said she didn’t know of a good church and wanted to know where I go.
I told her that I currently belong to a Baptist church in Thomasville which is about 45 minutes from my home at Honey Lake. It has been well worth the drive and I’ve enjoyed attending there very much, but lately I’ve had an uncomfortable, nagging feeling that I need to make a change.
No I’m not leaving because I’m mad at anyone; just the opposite, I love that church and its excellent pastor, and I especially love my Sunday school class.
Well then why would you feel led by God to leave?
Hmmm… Every Sunday morning I drive right by gorgeous Honey Lake Plantation Church and it sits there empty. (You can see it by visiting our website at www.Honeylakeplantation.com ) I admit I’m not the smartest guy on earth, but even I can figure out that God doesn’t want that beautiful church sitting idle every Sunday morning. True we conduct awesome weddings in it most every weekend and have held special services there like the one during my Success Seminar, but the Holy Spirit has convinced me that we need to conduct some regular church services and we should dedicate that church to Him.
I boldly blurted out to the lady at the barber shop that in the very near future we would be conducting services at Honey Lake and she could come there one weekend.
Yikes!
My mind was racing. I’ve never founded a church and know nothing about it; I don’t have a pastor in mind or even know how to find one; I don’t know how to advertise that a new church has been born; I don’t know how to legally begin one; my wife has not been keen on the idea of taking on more projects; I travel a lot with my ministry…. Gulp…
I must be on the right track; satan is coming after me as fast as Obama and the Democratic Party attacked Paul Ryan after Mitt Romney’s announcement that Ryan was his choice for Vice President.
Phooey on satan and every last one of his minions. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!
I don’t know where to start, but formulating a mission statement and putting it into writing seems to be the logical place to begin. The words of my Sunday school teacher last Sunday rang loudly in my ears. I had just informed the class that I would be leaving soon because I felt led to start our little church. I mentioned that I was an evangelist at heart and wanted the emphasis to be on winning souls for the Lord.
My teacher mentioned that we all should have a “heart for evangelism”; however there are 168 hours in a week that we have available to devote to witnessing to others, and yet we come to his class for just one hour. If I understood him correctly he was intimating that the time spent in his class should be about fortifying the soldiers enlisted in the Army of God with Christian fellowship and also to provide training right out of the Bible and not necessarily evangelism.
That made a lot of sense to me for a Sunday school class. I’m not sure I agree that it should be the mission statement for the church though. I think the church should be more about helping folks find their salvation. I will have to pray about it as I move forward, but one thing sure that little church will be primarily about winning souls for the Lord.
The important thing to me is to see people come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. I see billions of people on this planet that desperately need to hear God’s plan of salvation. True enough, once we obtain salvation God expects us to personally grow in Christ, but we should also keep in mind that the last thing Jesus instructed the Disciples before ascending into heaven in all four of the Gospels was to go all over the world and witness to others. With that act He also commanded “us” to go out and witness to others and fulfill the Great Commission. In order to do that we need to understand the Scriptures and perhaps the church should provide that knowledge in addition to a pure evangelical approach, but in my mind the main emphasis should be on evangelism.
It is not lost on me that some folks want to hear the Pentecostal shout and others want the Methodist yawn. People are different. Some, (especially younger folks), want loud contemporary praise music accompanied by instruments and others want to quietly worship in a place where one could hear a pin drop.
I’ve attended all kinds of churches; some seemed dead as a hammer, and others I began to wish I’d worn my snake boots five seconds after the service began and people started talking in tongues and running up and down the aisles shouting strange utterances. I admit that on occasion when driving home from church that I’ve been critical of some of the services that I’ve attended.
Now I’m tasked with starting a church myself and the shoe is on the other foot.
Hmmm…
One thing this experience is bringing home to roost is that my conscience is seared if not outright on fire by some of those negative critical comments I’ve made throughout the years. I find myself struggling just to define a mission statement; I haven’t even begun all of the other stuff yet and I’m already floundering.
The next time I enter a church I assure you that I will have a greater appreciation as to what it took to get it going. Designing and building the church was a cool breeze on a hot day compared to what lies ahead.
Could it be that God is smiling, or maybe downright guffawing at my struggles?
What’s that?
I hear the laughter coming from heaven confirming my idiocy. I have a smile on my face too. Justice delayed is not justice denied…
Mark 16:15
And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.