While we are teaching those sermons and the “get rich quick in God” sermons, there are some real issues that need to be addressed in the Body of Christ. What good is it to be rich with a broken body? Someone needs to teach reconciliation to help Sis. Jenkins and Sis. Williams to help them resolve their differences. They need to hear the scripture, “How can you say you love the Lord and hate your brother?” Someone needs to offer Christ to the keyboard player or send him on his way. We have the ungodly leading us in our praises to God? Maybe its time for them to sit with the congregation so that they can be taught, offered Christ, disciples, and then back on the keyboards. Sad to have a lost soul IN the church. Someone needs to intercede for Pastor Pope and hold him accountable. And someone needs to say, “Hey, I’m sorry but if it’s nothing positive I really prefer not to hear about what happened about Bro. Doright. Whatever happened, let’s pray about it.” How does it look to an outsider that we spend more time surrounding ourselves with ignored and unresolved issues than we do in the community helping the sick, the orphans, the widows, and the poor?
At a church I once attended a while back, an associate minister said this. “One of the greatest testimonies against this church is Bro. Robert. Here is a man who sits in the back of the church, sometimes not clean and not dressed in the best of clothes. But he’s here every Sunday. We talk about his appearance, we tell him to shower. We yell at him on the street as he holds his cup out for money telling him not to wear the church shirt while begging for money. But if we were taking care of him like we should, he would not be begging for money, he would have better clothes, and he would be clean. How much effort would it take for a church of 300 to buy one man one pair of pants? But yet, after he’s done begging, he’s walking up to the offering plate giving when most of you don’t and you have jobs and a home.”. As my Pastor would say, if you can’t say amen say ouch.
How many other churches across the land is this same thing happening to, that we are ignoring issues and ignoring things that are going on with the people? Isn’t that why we are here? And if so, why are we doing nothing to change that? There are many out there that strive to do just that, to help bring about a change in the Body of Christ, so this doesn’t apply to everyone. But we must pull together and work together. Maybe it’s time that we slow down on the choir competitions to see who has the best choir. Besides, no matter how it sounds, if it’s sincere, it’s all about praising God. Maybe it’s time we slowed down on trying to build the mega ministry, because the larger the membership, it because easy for Bro. Jones’ issue to get lost in the crowd. The Apostles saw this same issue. They noticed that they were slipping in the daily ministration. So they did something about it. They found seven men of good report to help.
We are in need of discipling members, empowering them, and sending them out to help strengthen the body of Christ. Right now as I see it, the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. The entertainers are plenteous, but the laborers are few. What we have called the “fivefold ministry”, the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, have different roles but for one purpose. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
So if you have been patient enough to read this far, I thank you. Let me close by saying, let us think about this together. Let us ponder what we can do to strengthen the ministry we are in, and how can we work together to strengthen the ministries around us. How can we make a change to stop ignoring the things that need to be addressed, and do we have enough discipled warriors in place to go into the congregation to make sure that all needs are being met? I challenge you to take this to heart, and take this to your ministry. Whether you are the Pastor, an Usher (an Ursher in the south), or just a laymen, let us begin to focus on how we can strengthen the Body of Christ, and begin to work on the commission God gave us, to go out into the hedges of highways to seek the lost so that our Father’s house would be filled. But before we can work on the lost, we must first work on ourselves. May His peace forever shower you and surround you with His serenity. May His love embrace you and comfort you. May His power strengthen you and encourage you. I love you, but God loves you best.
His humble servant,
Brother Kelvin
