What if...? (pt. 2)

In a previous blog I wrote about how God was shifting my thinking from the question "God what do you want to do in my life and in Grace Church" to "God what do you want to do in Ventura."  The new question has several challenges for me.  The first challenge I talked about shifting my vision from several people to well over 100,000 people and the need to trust God and not my resources.  Today I want to write about the second reason.

The second reason penetrates a little deeper into my thinking.  If the primary questions shifts from, "God what do you want to do in the church" to "God what do you want to do in the city"; then my thinking has to shift.  I can not afford to spend my time thinking how to develop programs to grab peoples attention.  I have to stop thinking in the attractional model.  I have to let go of my obsession of trying to build an empire.  Instead I need to start thinking of being a part of the Kingdom.  I have been called to be a part of the Kingdom not an empire.  This means I have to think differently about the talents, gifts, and resources God has entrusted to me.  The talents, gifts, and resources are not intended for ministry to fellow believers but to all the unbelievers as well.  What I believe God is saying is that I am to invest, with intentionality, into the lives of those in our city.  This intentionality is to see the Kingdom of God expanded.

However the truth is I have been trained to think empire.  The truth is at the heart of building an empire is a strategy to develop a ministry plan that is better than what other churches are offering.  No matter what we tell ourselves the reality is when we think empire building the competition is other churches.

I have never seen a city where a church that grew to become a large church has not done so by attracting members from other churches in the city.  In other words the larger churches are built, at least at some degree, at the expense of the smaller churches.  As long as I continue to promote this process the churches in any city will always see sister churches as the competition.

What if my thinking were to change.  What if I invested my time and my resources into my neighbors life and they became a follower of Jesus yet chose to attend another church, would I be ok with that?  What if my thinking changed to believing people coming into the kingdom and choosing to attend another church should be celebrated as a win not mourned as a loss.   Just thought of this. . ., how cool would it be if once a year every church in the city celebrated each others baptisms for that year.  Celebrate anyone giving their life to Jesus is a win for the Kingdom and therefore a win for all of us.  In Kingdom thinking the competition is not sister churches but the kingdom of darkness.  Therefore when one of the sister churches of Ventura wins, Grace Church wins, God wins.  What if my thinking were to change from a limited vision of the four corners of a building to the four corners of a city or indeed the world?...

What if?