Spiritual COVID

Spiritual COVID Syndrome Have we made the church to be something that it was never intended to be? Should we be more interested in gathering and keeping people or in releasing and sending them out? What is our motivation for reaching more people? I think most of us would agree that to send people out, we must get people in. But it is possible to do both. I am afraid we lean more to the side of gathering people, with the intent of keeping them, than we do sending them out. To answer these questions, all we must do is take a hard look at a church’s budget. What we will discover is that most churches are spending more time, energy, and resources on building bigger crowds and doing whatever it takes to add to our attendance. Absolutely nothing is wrong with that if our intent is to mature them in the faith so they can be sent out to share it with others. Maybe we have gotten to the point where our priorities are not where they should be. Today, far too many churches are placing more emphasis on building bigger crowds, constructing more buildings, and buying more land than sending people out so they can share their faith with a lost and dying world. The question that every serious-minded leader in the church should ask themselves is “Why do I want more people?” Gathering people is not a bad thing in and of itself. What we need to seriously wrestle with is why we are so bent toward filling our “religious mausoleums” with more people. Maybe head count has taken precedence over what really counts. In writing to the church at Corinth, Paul uses the analogy of the human body to help us understand the spiritual body—the church (1 Corinthians 12:1–31 NKJV). For the human body to remain healthy, there must be the expulsion of waste matter so toxins can be eliminated. Excretion is an essential process in all living things. It helps to prevent damage to the body. It is one of the major ways the human body maintains homeostasis. Without the ability to eliminate toxins, the body will bloat, and it will create complications. It is the process of the body taking in, processing what has been taken in, and then releasing. This is what I want you to focus on. For our bodies to be healthy, there must be a balance of inflow and outflow. What is true concerning the physical body also applies to the spiritual body that we call the church. A healthy church will focus on reaching, teaching, and releasing people. We reach people so we can teach and mature them in their new creation identities in Christ. The motivation behind teaching the people we have reached should be on sending them out to reach more people. The ones we are sending out allow us to expand the kingdom. If our motivation for reaching more people is so we can send more people out, we may find ourselves the recipients of divine intervention and resources to help us reach more people. God will always make sure that we have adequate provision to carry out his vision. We have gotten fairly efficient at reaching and teaching people, but we still have some work to do when it comes to releasing people. I spent the first twenty-seven years of my ministry pastoring churches that were a part of a particular denomination. My experience pastoring these churches was incredible. I would not trade anything for that season in my life. For the last twenty-three years, I’ve pastored a church that is not a part of a particular denomination. We are an autonomous group, but we have chosen to be in fellowship with other churches of like-mindedness and spiritual affinity. I still have some dear friends who pastor churches in the denomination that I was a part of for so long. Many of them have already retired. We stay in contact with one another, and I am blessed to have them as friends. I am deeply appreciative to that denomination for making sure that I was grounded in the Word of God and for instilling in me a burning desire to see souls come to know Christ. Today we have too many leaders and churches who are a mile wide and an inch deep. During the twenty-seven years that I pastored a denominational church, I attended my share of conferences where most attendees were from the same denomination. When you are being introduced to someone for the first time, within the first few minutes of the introduction exchange, you will be asked this question: “How many people are attending your services?” This is one question you can always rely on being asked. The number of people that are attending your church has become the criteria used by the ecclesiastical hierarchy to measure a pastor’s effectiveness and success. This is sad but true. Most pastors are convinced that the larger the number of people attending their church services is what determines their success or their failure. Value and self-worth, is moored to the size of how many people are in attendance. The more people you gather, the greater your value. This was certainly not the motive of every person who asked this question, but these are the words the enemy will use to attack a pastor’s self-worth. After all, we live in a ministry culture where bigger is synonymous with being better. Don’t shout me down.