7"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good."
Alistair Begg told a story yesterday about someone who showed a video at a conference he was attending of a hockey player who, clip after clip, was passing the puck to another player who then scored a goal. Number 19's claim to fame was not that he was a great scorer, but that he was great at assisting others in scoring goals.
I did a little research and found that number 19 for the San Jose' Sharks, the team the video clips were taken from, is Joe Thornton. Consistently over the years Joe has been a leading points getter. Players get their points based on the number of goals scored and the number of assists they have. In the 2007-2008 season, for example, Joe was the highest points getter with 96 points - 29 of which were for goals he scored and 67 were for his assists. The entire team scored 172 goals that year which means that Joe personally scored 16% of the goals and assisted in 46% of the remaining 143 goals. Alistair's point was that although number 19 did not score most of the team's goals, most of the goals that were scored involved number 19 (95 of the 172).
I want to score some goals for Jesus, my coach, and his church, my team. More than that I want to be a number 19. I want to help my teammates score goals. Joe Thornton is a good illustration that teams win on the combined efforts of everyone on the team and that assisting is more important than scoring.
Paul's Online is a team effort following the example of another great team player, the Apostle Paul. Although he personally did many great things for Jesus, he was only part of a much larger team. Just read his letters to the churches and see how he assisted them through his encouragements and teachings. Paul also often mentioned those who assisted him in his work.
Click here for Alistair Begg's awesome Scottish accent: http://www.truthforlife.org
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Magnet Principle: OUR ATTRACTIVENESS
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." John 6:44
Churches are like magnets. Magnets attract ferromagnetic material (i.e. iron) which is material that has the capacity to become a magnet. A magnet's field is invisible and responsible for the force that pulls on these other materials.
Churches have a similar attracting force on their community. The people in the church are like the people in the community whose only difference is that they have become Christians who together serve and worship Jesus regularly. People living and working in the church's community have this same capacity to come to know and serve Jesus.
What I've noticed is that, like magnets, churches tend to attract only those in their community who are near by, either physically or relationally. In other words, most people who will come to a particular church are those who have been drawn to that church by it's members. Churches attract visitors when a church member invites a friend or neighbor or someone they know to attend with them. Like Andrew (see John 1:40-42), who had personally come to know Jesus and then went and found his brother and told him what happened and then brought Peter to Jesus, churches function well by sharing what they know about Jesus with others and then bring these people to Jesus.
A good way to increase the effectiveness of the Church is to increase the "attractive force," the pull we have on our community by taking this force (Christian people) out to where the people are who need to come to know Jesus, like Andrew did. The text in John tells us, "the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah.'"
Most people simply will not come to church on their own, regardless of our signs, flyers, and advertisements. These efforts will increase their awareness of our presence, but they will not exert any of our natural attractive force on them.
Churches are like magnets. Magnets attract ferromagnetic material (i.e. iron) which is material that has the capacity to become a magnet. A magnet's field is invisible and responsible for the force that pulls on these other materials.
Churches have a similar attracting force on their community. The people in the church are like the people in the community whose only difference is that they have become Christians who together serve and worship Jesus regularly. People living and working in the church's community have this same capacity to come to know and serve Jesus.
What I've noticed is that, like magnets, churches tend to attract only those in their community who are near by, either physically or relationally. In other words, most people who will come to a particular church are those who have been drawn to that church by it's members. Churches attract visitors when a church member invites a friend or neighbor or someone they know to attend with them. Like Andrew (see John 1:40-42), who had personally come to know Jesus and then went and found his brother and told him what happened and then brought Peter to Jesus, churches function well by sharing what they know about Jesus with others and then bring these people to Jesus.
A good way to increase the effectiveness of the Church is to increase the "attractive force," the pull we have on our community by taking this force (Christian people) out to where the people are who need to come to know Jesus, like Andrew did. The text in John tells us, "the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah.'"
Most people simply will not come to church on their own, regardless of our signs, flyers, and advertisements. These efforts will increase their awareness of our presence, but they will not exert any of our natural attractive force on them.
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