I published this on my personal blog, Thinking Out Loud, this morning, but decided later that it also belonged here.
No matter what the people who print calendars tell you, the school year cycle determines when the start of the “new year” is in most churches.
Nothing lasting happens in your local church without (a) vision, (b) prayer and (c) planning. Vision begins with people who are ‘initiators’ that is, people who feel God is sending them into the middle of a situation or area to give birth to something that will either (a) serve those with needs, or (b) proclaim Christ; to provide opportunities to be salt and light at particular place and time or for their particular generation.
At a very low point in my life about ten years ago I asked God, “If my health improves and I am able to take on something, what do You want me to do for Your kingdom?”
The answer came in the middle of a worship service as clear as what you’re reading right now: “You need to be doing more.”
More? More what?
I wasn’t sure.
Some day, I’ll finish that story on this blog. It wasn’t the answer I expected. I was looking for a fresh vision. Instead, I was led to expand on a vision already in progress.
Let me say here that there is nothing you can “do” for God. He is concerned with what you can “be” for Him. But I know a lot of people are working on that “being” to the extent that nothing happens about “doing.” Sometimes by “doing” God shapes our “being.” With the exception of a handful of people who have some major stuff they need to work out, you can’t wait until you are perfect. That day will just keep slipping further and further into the future.
As the fall season approaches in your local church (or some local parachurch organization) you have a choice: You can maintain the status quo in your life, or you can choose to be a little apostolic; you can be a person who makes things happens.
What will your role be as another season of ministry commences in a few weeks?
You need to be doing more.
Christianity 201 