If you are a church leader, do you think about church ministry with Christ’s activity in view? When you woke up in the morning, after the coffee cleared the fog, does this reality focus your motivation? Are you committed to building up those whom Jesus loves? 

What’s your reaction when you hear, “It’s time for church?” Does it inspire eagerness to join God’s people, to celebrate God’s mighty works in worship, to hear his voice through his word? Or something less exalted. Maybe for you church means getting up early, driving far, preaching that goes too long, and engaging certain people you don’t want to see. And you’re the pastor!

Whether you are a pastor or not, here’s a couple of questions to consider as you consider how you feel about your local church.

Will You Build What Truly Lasts?

Have you lately considered the call upon the church? Jesus told his disciples, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Funny, isn’t it. When you look from this passage to your local church, the first impression is not of an unstoppable entity that busts through the gates of hell. “You mean my church? With all of its problems and peculiar people?” Yup. That’s the one.

Technically, it’s not just you. It’s Christ’s church, both universal and local. But your local church is definitely in view. You see, joining a church is not like membership in the Moose Lodge or Rotary club with the monthly email and participation that turns on what best serves your lifestyle. Once we are converted, God intends for the church to actually disrupt our lifestyle. He uses it to surface what we love more than him. The church is an instrument that forms and shapes us for His kingdom. God ordains the church to agitate our attachments to this world, to prepare us for something eternal. As C.S. Lewis quipped, “Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.” But the church, that body of which Christ is the head—lasts forever!

You need to convey this to your small group. Or ministry. Or if you’re a pastor, to your church.

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