A Report from My Mission Field

I'm running short on time so this will be too short.

Something very interesting happened the other day when I was on my mission field in the grocery store.

I was giving a break to a bagger. And I was bagging for a cashier whom I know, vaguely, to be at the very least a church-goer with spiritual interest. She has asked me spiritual and Theological questions several times.

Evie and I are leaving tomorrow for a week's vacation in Myrtle Beach. And, I was telling the cashier that I am anxious to be going.

Just as I said that, a customer came to our aisle. This guy clearly is gifted to be an evangelist.

And he said to me, "But doesn't the Bible say be anxious in nothing?" Then he continued, quoting the King James Version, and said "...but in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God."

I interrupted him by adding, "No, 'with Thanksgiving,' make your request known."

He nodded and smiled then went on to quote the next verse and left out another phrase which I added for him.

He smiled again and asked me what church I go to. And I told him that I go to a house Church. He smiled even brighter. And we talked for a moment about how in the early church, believers met in houses. Then he told me what church he goes to and what the name of his pastor is and that his pastor preaches the word.

He then went on to challenge me to make certain that I believe the gospel in addition to merely going to church. When he was satisfied, he turn to the cashier and challenged her with the gospel.

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I was struck by several things as I thought back on that experience. One of them is that, in the CGGC, we don't empower or even attract people with this man's giftedness, and intense passion for the Gospel and the lost.

I haven't met many people in our body with this bold, focused and simple approach to life for a long time.

And that saddens me.

It is also part of the deepest problem I see in our body. And it is why, I believe, we have no future at all in the CGGC unless we repent and begin to behave in a different way.

That different way must be like the way we behaved in our first days. It must love the way of the Evangelist more than it enables the dysfunction of the shepherd.

We are so very broken!

We must repent!

Why don't we repent?