Thanks to Life Long Learner for these thoughts to ponder . . .
• Change is inevitable
• If people want to go to church…they will.
• There are churches for church minded insiders to go to.
• There are churches that think about and adjust their practices to reach out to the outsiders. (I want to be a part of this church)
• Since the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, would it not stand to reason that from time to time things need to be “shaken” a little?
• God does not need us to defend Him, but to live in a way that we walk and move in Him. Thus, evangelism is no longer door knocking and beating people up with canned manipulative scripts rather it is loving people enough and believing God is big enough to save them through what we might find as very ordinary acts of kindness including listening to them, respecting them, loving them as they are not as they should be. RELATIONSHIP with no conditions – even if they choose not to follow Christ!
• Some people might respond to guilt, coercion, even reason, but most will respond to loving kindness in the form of respect.
• A worship service should be to allow us to express our worship to God and find the “boost” we need to go back in the world and love people, to be the workers God sends, to listen, to love, to learn.
• Conversation in Community then Conversion. Conversion belongs to God.
good thoughts to ponder
Hi Amy
YES… Change is great. We need to go forward not back wards. Change from the day when African American can’t go to the same church. Change from the King James verson to New King James Verson. Change that women can be a doctor, lawyer and a pastor. We don’t need to be Afraid with change. But to imbrace change as a knowing what we do is his will not owers.
You’re Friend
Will
I’ve heard it said that when we go to church it is like bringing all our little lights together to form one big light. Coming in from the cold, seeing the bigger picture. Bless you in your efforts to change!