How often do we find ourselves in a good place and think we're well off. Certainly not during a church fight, turmoil or other serious events, and never when attendance is rising or popularity is gaining. I was reading an article entitled "How a mighty church falls" and in it the author explains 5 stages in the process of organizational slippage. The 3rd stage of decline emerges when leaders and organizations ignore or minimize critical information or refuse to listen to things they do not want to hear. You can call it Denial of Risk and Peril. Like Homer Simpson's brilliant rule about obeying the law - I'm not breaking the law if I don't see it", it is natural and easy to avoid drudging up the unsatisfactory and poor parts of my life and ministry.
Recently Domino's pizza came out with a commercial where they voiced people's dissatisfaction with there pizza. "The crust is like cardboard" or "the sauce is tastes like ketchup." They explained how they weren't afraid to look at reality - even if it was bleak.
In my own life I do not want to be like the people of the Laodicean Church who thought they were rich, well off, and doing okay, but Jesus says they are poor, blind, wretched and naked. Is my evaluation of my life the same as Jesus'? Is the reality of my condition the same reality God sees?
There are a few things I remind myself of often. 1) Money doesn't equal God's blessing. 2) Lack of money doesn't make me more spiritual 3) Jesus never wrote a book, spoke at a conference, traveled far away from home, or was on staff at a large church. Verse 18 reads,
" I advise you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, and white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see."
Here's the link for the song w/ a brief intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfuzg11ar0
1 comments:
"2) Lack of money doesn't make me more spiritual"
Nor does it make me less spiritual.
"3) Jesus never… spoke at a conference,… or was on staff at a large church."
Perhaps therein lies the problem: Too often we don't hear Him speaking at our conferences and too often He is missing from the list of people who head His church.
Fortunately, such glaring faults and weaknesses are missing from the tribe of Gantenbeins.
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