Recently I received an email update on what is going on within my denomination. It focused mainly on our churches in Gautemala, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Columbia. It showed statistics from this past year of the growth of these churches in these areas. Every area showed growth! This is was definitely a moment to praise God. Then it showed the stats of the churches in America within this denomination. It showed -2.5% growth. If you did not catch what that means, it means that the American churches declined by two and a half percent.
After I read these stats, I did not get depressed about it. They got me thinking. Why are these churches in these other countries growing and the churches in America are not? After all, we were the birth mother of these other churches. If it were not for the work of American missionaries, there would be no churches there. I think the reason is that Jesus means so much more to them than he does to us. Not to say that Jesus means nothing to us or our churches. But, if Jesus meant as much as we think he does, wouldn't we be pouring everything we have into the work of the kingdom? We always joke that 10% of the people in our churches do all of the work, but why is that? Why is that a reality all across the board? That is not what Scripture teaches us about the way the church should function. Paul teaches us that every part is held together for the good of the whole. The spiritual gifts that are given to us are used for the mutual building up of each other within the church so that we can be the most effective for the kingdom of God.
The churches down in these countries are working together for the kingdom of God because the King means everything to them. This is the same in other countries as well that do not have free access to Jesus. They cherish one page of the Bible because that is all they have of it and they will read it over and over. We get bored with books like Leviticus and Numbers, but imagine if that was the only book of the Bible that you had? Would you still get bored with it?
Christmas is upon us and we start going into panic mode trying to get our Christmas cards out, getting presents for everyone, and parties planned. But, how much does the reason for Christmas mean to us? If he meant more to us, then maybe our churches would not be seeing a decline. I know these stats were only for my denomination, but I think other denominations have similar stats as well. We need to reevaluate how much Jesus means to us. We spend more time talking about things that don't matter and pouring energy into the latest program when we should be pouring ourselves out for our King and his kingdom.
I challenge myself from this day forward to make much of Jesus everyday. I have been getting distracted by life myself and not putting as much effort into knowing Jesus, but that needs to stop. I want to follow the example of my brothers and sisters in Latin America. I want Jesus to mean the most to me.
Amen. Good word!
ReplyDelete