LIFE
Doing Life together seems to be the latest craze in churches and ministries across the world at the minute. Everywhere we go churches are talking about Doing Life, Life Groups, Life Together, Doing Life with Each other, but, is it just a phase or have churches finally grasped what Jesus is all about?
Ever since I started out in ministry I was far more interested in getting down and dirty with people, serving, helping being where the action is. However I liked nothing more than chatting with the other leaders, volunteers and people God was bringing across my path and just meeting them where they were at and seeing where things went from there. As much as I understood the importance of attending meetings and doing admin being on the ground with people was were I felt happiest. I love preaching and one of my biggest regrets is I don't do it enough, however the reason I love preaching so much is the conversations afterwards. I love being able to chat with people about the message God has laid on my heart, I love getting to pray with people that have been impacted by the words God has spoken through me. I love getting my hands dirty and just getting right in there.
Over the past few weeks God has really been driving home to me that one of the most important things
in ministry is the fact you are doing LIFE with people. You are helping to shape the people he brings your way, therefore helping guide their LIFE. Not only that you walk through the good times and the bad times with each other. All to often (and I include myself in this) we get caught up in the numbers game, we say its all about the people coming and how they are being impacted by the activities but really deep down we are looking at the numbers. Maybe it's time we stopped looking at the numbers filling our churches and halls each week and instead looked at the living, breathing sons and daughters of God sitting in front of us.
I have to admit I have played the numbers game and lost. When I was a Children's Pastor I got so caught up in wanting a bigger and better children's ministry with wanting more and more kids that I lost sight of the precious lives God was giving me to invest in. As my leadership meetings began to focus more and more on how we could do things bigger and better numbers began to drop. Drastically. I remember turning to a really good friend of my who was my right hand man so to speak, my wing man, and I remember asking her why our numbers had dropped (we lost 20 kids in a month) and her reply shocked me. She said Andrew we have lost sight of what God put us here to do. It shouldn't matter to us if there are 5 or 50 kids here we need to look and be thankful for what God has given us and invest in that rather than always wanting more. She was right we got selfish we wanted to exalt ourselves as the best Kids Leaders in the country, but at the cost of doing life with these kids.
Tonight I spent 2 hours just chatting with a young man that I haven't really known that long but who has a real anointing and gift from God in his life. I have to say I left blessed. In that period of time we connected, we wrestled with issues that had come for him in his christian walk and they had impacted his faith and walk. We just sat and chatted about Life, with that freedom of going off on a tangent if thats were the conversation was going.
On my way home God just spoke clearly to me and said that is what this is all about, just sitting down and doing life together.
It's funny how God does that.
I do a lot of driving on a weekly basis and over the past few weeks I keep having these moments when I just drive in silence and listen for what God might be saying. I've recently been thinking about Youth Programs for next year and what God is saying about what stays and what goes. Recently I've been feeing more of a sway to Home Groups, Small Mentor Groups and more one on one opportunities. Could this be where God is moving his church?
In my own life I have a small group of people that I do life with who I sit down and talk about stuff with and who keep me on the right track and likewise there are a small group of christian men who I meet up with every 1-2 months to encourage, mentor and support through life. The minister in the church where I work has recently been preaching about how Jesus related to people and recently gave a sermon where he discussed the whole idea of all we need to share the gospel is "A cup of coffee in one hand and a Bible in the other." Is it really that simple? I believe it could be.
Here is my challenge is this the type of ministry God wants us to do? Does he want us to move away from our big meetings and just focus on the one on one? Has church become so preoccupied with programs that we've lost the people?
After all Jesus spent the majority of his time with twelve men. Twelve men with interesting backgrounds, do you honestly think they didn't spend time discussing their lives and the impact Jesus was having? If not with Jesus himself definitely with each other. Jesus valued relationships he took time out to be with people, and it was always the unexpected. Look at the story of Zachaeus.
I know this might be a bit of a ramble but I just wanted to share my thoughts with you guys. Maybe we need to stop playing church and just get out there and start Doing Life with people??
Ever since I started out in ministry I was far more interested in getting down and dirty with people, serving, helping being where the action is. However I liked nothing more than chatting with the other leaders, volunteers and people God was bringing across my path and just meeting them where they were at and seeing where things went from there. As much as I understood the importance of attending meetings and doing admin being on the ground with people was were I felt happiest. I love preaching and one of my biggest regrets is I don't do it enough, however the reason I love preaching so much is the conversations afterwards. I love being able to chat with people about the message God has laid on my heart, I love getting to pray with people that have been impacted by the words God has spoken through me. I love getting my hands dirty and just getting right in there.
Over the past few weeks God has really been driving home to me that one of the most important things
in ministry is the fact you are doing LIFE with people. You are helping to shape the people he brings your way, therefore helping guide their LIFE. Not only that you walk through the good times and the bad times with each other. All to often (and I include myself in this) we get caught up in the numbers game, we say its all about the people coming and how they are being impacted by the activities but really deep down we are looking at the numbers. Maybe it's time we stopped looking at the numbers filling our churches and halls each week and instead looked at the living, breathing sons and daughters of God sitting in front of us.
I have to admit I have played the numbers game and lost. When I was a Children's Pastor I got so caught up in wanting a bigger and better children's ministry with wanting more and more kids that I lost sight of the precious lives God was giving me to invest in. As my leadership meetings began to focus more and more on how we could do things bigger and better numbers began to drop. Drastically. I remember turning to a really good friend of my who was my right hand man so to speak, my wing man, and I remember asking her why our numbers had dropped (we lost 20 kids in a month) and her reply shocked me. She said Andrew we have lost sight of what God put us here to do. It shouldn't matter to us if there are 5 or 50 kids here we need to look and be thankful for what God has given us and invest in that rather than always wanting more. She was right we got selfish we wanted to exalt ourselves as the best Kids Leaders in the country, but at the cost of doing life with these kids.
Tonight I spent 2 hours just chatting with a young man that I haven't really known that long but who has a real anointing and gift from God in his life. I have to say I left blessed. In that period of time we connected, we wrestled with issues that had come for him in his christian walk and they had impacted his faith and walk. We just sat and chatted about Life, with that freedom of going off on a tangent if thats were the conversation was going.
On my way home God just spoke clearly to me and said that is what this is all about, just sitting down and doing life together.
It's funny how God does that.
I do a lot of driving on a weekly basis and over the past few weeks I keep having these moments when I just drive in silence and listen for what God might be saying. I've recently been thinking about Youth Programs for next year and what God is saying about what stays and what goes. Recently I've been feeing more of a sway to Home Groups, Small Mentor Groups and more one on one opportunities. Could this be where God is moving his church?
In my own life I have a small group of people that I do life with who I sit down and talk about stuff with and who keep me on the right track and likewise there are a small group of christian men who I meet up with every 1-2 months to encourage, mentor and support through life. The minister in the church where I work has recently been preaching about how Jesus related to people and recently gave a sermon where he discussed the whole idea of all we need to share the gospel is "A cup of coffee in one hand and a Bible in the other." Is it really that simple? I believe it could be.
Here is my challenge is this the type of ministry God wants us to do? Does he want us to move away from our big meetings and just focus on the one on one? Has church become so preoccupied with programs that we've lost the people?
After all Jesus spent the majority of his time with twelve men. Twelve men with interesting backgrounds, do you honestly think they didn't spend time discussing their lives and the impact Jesus was having? If not with Jesus himself definitely with each other. Jesus valued relationships he took time out to be with people, and it was always the unexpected. Look at the story of Zachaeus.
I know this might be a bit of a ramble but I just wanted to share my thoughts with you guys. Maybe we need to stop playing church and just get out there and start Doing Life with people??
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