Thought For The Day

Changing the Focus

It seems to me, as we talk about the “local” (as opposed to Universal) Church of Jesus Christ, there is a  whole lot more conversation in most about reaching out to the people outside the Church than there is about reaching out to the people inside the Church. Please don’t hear me saying “reaching out” is a bad thing. I just want us to think about the wisdom, if there is any, in changing the focus to embrace an equality perspective, or maybe a “inside” skewing, of the conversation.

Will it spoil the thinking to say up front – I think the former will be helped by the latter.

Every Sunday, it is quite possible there are people all around us we don’t really know (care?) that much about. We are not familiar with what their problems may be, what hurts they are experiencing, what issues are dominating their thinking (lives?) at that moment. There may be a few whose names are not known to us, much less their “circumstance.” Indeed those very people are our “family,” according to God’s Word. They are the “lively stones” in the building that God is constructing for a “dwelling place” for Himself. And, in case we might wonder – no, it is not “their” responsibility – it is “our” responsibility, so don’t go there.

So arises the question – “Am I really looking to add members to the family who want, need, are entitled to “one another” ministry, and to be lloved and cared for, if or when I have not completed that task with the family members who are  currently part of “my” family? Those folks down the aisle there – they are the people you need most (family), the people who are most important to you (family), they are the people who offer the most to you (family).

I am confident we are not good at accomplishing ministry with “new folks” if we are not good at accomplishing ministry with “current folks.” Or, maybe better said, don’t try to “make room” for a new family member if the current family members are still waiting to “find room.”

P. S. Our Pastor always get’s a little sideways when a family member with eight years in the family ask him the name of a person who sits on the other end of “their pew” – who’s been a family member for five years.

P.P. S. If your “family” has 17000 members – don’t bother me. That’s not a family, that’s a convention.

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