Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Building On Sand
My friend John Gilmartin blogs about a church that ten years ago hosted thousands and now hosts hundreds, and a deathly debt. John says something very profound
We built our house on marketing techniques, on show, we lacked substance. From whence comes substance? As the passage above says - Christ!
The bottom line is this - we do not make things work, He does! Pray with me that we can rely on Him and not on our own understanding.
Cross-posted on How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: marketing, church, built on sand, Brownsville
My heart goes out to those who were hurt and whose spirits were broken in all of this, but it doesn't cry out "do it again." My heart cries out, "Lord, do it for real" "do it for the first time."So quickly my mind turned to scripture
Matt 7:20-27 - So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.' Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall.We work so hard to "build the church" and what is described in John's post is so often the result. I was a part of just such a church, how well I know the tumbling attendance and the strangling debt. I also know that when it happened where I was it was precisely because we heard those words of His and did not act upon them - we built our house very much on sand.
We built our house on marketing techniques, on show, we lacked substance. From whence comes substance? As the passage above says - Christ!
The bottom line is this - we do not make things work, He does! Pray with me that we can rely on Him and not on our own understanding.
Cross-posted on How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: marketing, church, built on sand, Brownsville
