There's Energy Out There

Last Thursday evening I had a chance to participate in a community-wide meeting in the town in which I live. It was the first meeting of lengthy visioning and planning process into which our community has entered. Somewhere around a hundred people gathered to take an honest and hopeful look at our area, and to dream about the town's possible future. It was a very candid and positive gathering.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I noticed how energizing it was for me. In the three years I've been here I haven't had a lot of time and opportunity to get outside the church walls and machinery to get into the community. Our church has had a lot of the normal internal needs churches face, such as finances, debt-retirement, staff, worship, scheduling, programming, etc. They've all been important matters, but they've kept a lot of my time and energy contained within the congregation. It has just felt real refreshing and exciting to get out into the community as a whole and to see how my faith, my discipleship, my witness, and my priorities fare in the non-church-dominated world.

If we who are Jesus followers reach points where we feel weary or unmotivated in doing church, it may be that we need to get outside of the church and take our faith into the communities/mission fields into which the Holy Spirit of God has placed us. It's not the case that God is at work only in the structures of Christian congregations. In fact, God is at work in the world around us, inviting congregations to get outside of themselves and join God in God's work. Ironically, vitality for Jesus-followers and churches lies in focus outside of our walls rather than within them.

All I know is that I'm feeling a burst of fervor getting outside the church some, and I believe that fervor will make be better within the congregation as well. What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend in the river.