out of alignment

Have you ever had a car that pulls one direction or the other?  Often it's subtle, so subtle that you barely notice or don't think much of it.  Your car just slightly drifts one direction, so you turn the wheel back the other way just a bit to make up for it...to go straight.  This is called being "out of alignment" and you can get it fixed at any repair shop or tire place.  If you don't fix it, it wears your tires unevenly and can cause you to get a flat more quickly.   But even more dangerous is the chance that you accidentally overcorrect while driving and crash...all because your tires aren't quite going in the same direction.

Churches can be the same.  One person may love missions (and missions are good).  Another might love Bible study (and Bible study is good).  Yet another might love music (also good).  More might love fellowship (still good)...and on and on it goes.  Each person may have different preferences about what good thing they love most in church; and that's ok.  But what causes problems is when they start to argue or fight or try to control the others over what is most important or should get the most funding or the most announcements or the most attention of the Pastor...this is where the danger lies.  Each person, trying to go their own direction, causes the church to go flat or even worse to crash.  A church must have a unified mission in order to work together or it will end up out of alignment.  That church can still have music and fellowship and Bible study and all those other things, so long as they understand that each of those things only serves the larger mission; that keeps us aligned and moving together.

We have a mission "to make disciples."  Not to make a better choir or to make more events...those are fine, but they are not the mission; so don't get confused.  We make disciples or we die.  The mission moves us.  The mission is our destination and the Holy Spirit is our fuel.  So let's get moving.  We need the music people to work with the mission people and the Bible study people too...all working together to make disciples who make disciples till Jesus returns.

In Christ,
Pastor Scott