John Maxwell recently wrote about how Pope John Paul II led the toppling of world communism by having
Vision – Connection and Direction. The Pope was following a 2000 year old plan: God’s plan. Christ’s vision for His Church is clear: a
community of believers who so love Him and each other that others are compelled to join up. He provides His Church with the Holy Spirit to connect it to Himself, each other and the world, and to keep it moving in the right direction.
Satan knows this plan and his strategy to stop it is to prevent the life of community. When he can’t prevent it; he provides deceptively similar alternatives. The explosion of “social networking” on the internet: “communities” like facebook or twitter, appear to meet the need God has placed in each of us to connect with each other. The attraction of these networks is the illusion that we can connect without really connecting. The “church” has been doing this for years, providing television and internet “alternatives” to a living breathing community.
Like the wolf eyeing a flock of sheep, Satan loves it when an individual separates from the flock or the herd. They’re oh so easy to pick off.
It can feel really comfortable roaming on our own away from the flock. After all the flock is made up of smelly stinky sheep. They don’t understand us. They hurt our feelings. Not all of them believe exactly like we do. They’re not “real” Christians. Of course, all of this is based on limited information. We don’t really know the rest of the flock. We don’t take time to talk to them or better yet listen to them. We don’t know how they really feel; what they really think; how God is really real in their lives.
Just attending a church in person isn’t a guarantee that we’re part of a living community. We can get so caught up in the practical work of the church, the programs, that we lose sight of the vision: a loving community. Even if we are present every time the church doors are open, if we are not connecting with each other, we’re not really community. We’re not really the Church our Lord envisioned.
We often marvel at how effective the church seems to be in foreign fields. Could it be that those flocks have nothing but each other. No alternatives to the community which provides for their very survival.
We must recapture the vision, a loving community, with connection through the Holy Spirit gifted to us, with a clear direction to bring love and change to our world by introducing them to a God of infinite love.
Take a bath, jump in the mire with the other stinky smelly sheep. Let God help you learn to know them and love them like He does. Be the real Christian He intends for us to be and be
Blessed to be a blessing.
Nick
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