Going Into the World

I was watching a preacher on television and it was the standard...  preacher comes on and introduces the ministry and the message of the week and after five minutes preamble he goes to the sermon. I watched and it wasn't all that fascinating but it wasn't bad either.  The preacher was in his early 40's, wearing blue jeans and a tee-shirt which showed off the muscular body and it was obvious that this was a guy that enjoyed his appearance.  Fit,trim and well manicured, he preached and had the crowd hanging on every word.  Near the end of the 20 minutes of show came the point.  Times are tight now and here he has this major ministry.  He spoke of the several million dollars they spent a year out there in their community and while they had to cut back because of the economy...  they still put in a lot.  I suspected we were in for a plea for more help needed because more folk were in need of help...  I had no problem at all with that.


Then came the point and yeah...   I sat dumbfounded.  "Where are these people?"  That was what he asked.  "They aren't in MY church," he said.  Then he made it clear...  they were not going to just pour in money on the community like that any longer.  He likened it to a shotgun approach and used Jesus' sermon on the mount as an example.  Where Jesus preached to the masses using parables but the kingdom and understanding belonged to the disciples.  So he was going to stop shotgunning it and was going to start using the rifle instead.  I was like...  yeah well, regardless of our analogies and regardless of who understood Jesus...  he still took it to the masses.

This is what we are going to see more and more of in churches.  It's not that they are just going to cut back on helping their community...  they are going to pretty much cut it out because like most...  they focus on numbers and ignore ministry.  Another church that is "going into the world" and their own community goes to hell.