On the Hunt*
Notes
Transcript
Prayer
Prayer
Read: 1 Peter 5:1-8
Read: 1 Peter 5:1-8
1 The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Subject: On the Hunt
Subject: On the Hunt
Introduction
Introduction
My dear brothers and sisters… the time is now upon us when we find ourselves subject to the attacks of the enemy more than ever before.
Each time I look up, I feel as though we are losing territory to the enemy as the battle wages on because despite some of the best music of a generation, the best preaching of a generation, the best services of a generation, the most shouting of a generation the Church lacks any real power.
Make no mistake about it, despite what we are led to believe their are people throughout this country and even around the globe who are having amazing Church. We are having jam packed services and the Church is undergoing a dramatic shift in its culture. For quite some time throughout the Church’s history we had numerous small churches all of which were striving to be what we now call medium sized churches. I myself come from a medium sized church. On a slam packed Sunday it can feel like huge masses of people but it was ultimately only a medium sized Church. Every neighborhood had one and you went to the Church in your neighborhood because it maintained a sense of community.
However, somewhere along the line one Pastor got really popular and the megachurch movement stood up strong and firm pulling in thousands of members as people hoarded into the Church. People packed out these Churches as they adopted the mega church mentality with 50 assistant pastors and 100 deacons. And a strange thing happened with the advent of megachurches…
It slowly killed off the medium sized church as two extremes developed in the house of God. either people wanted to attend a small close knit service where no one is a stranger. Or they wanted to attend a stadium with concert style music, smoke, and light shows.
I want to be clear, I am not saying any of this to bash anyone… but I want us to address the state of the Church.
And so now medium sized churches, the moderate point in a world full of extremes, is on life support.
Much like many moderate things in the world today.
This has all led to the transformation of small churches from being the laughing stock of the Christian world to being the new golden child… such that where small churches have been rebranded with a new term I learned in a book I read about Part-time Pastoring… small churches (what we used to call storefronts) are now being called boutique churches.
They cater to the needs of a very specific and focused group of people with little regard for the needs or expectations of others.
This idea that we can corner a market and if we stay strong in our market, we do not have to worry about anyone being able to steal our products… i mean members away.
Now the idea of a boutique church does me no harm because ultimately we are each called to be our own boutique ministry because life has peppered you with experiences that will allow you to reach people I will never reach.
If you are a recovering addict… you are better fit to (when the time is right) minister to people who may need recovery....
And so the idea that God would create boutique ministries to prepare people in the establishment of his Kingdom makes perfect sense to me… do the same thing on a larger scale.
But we have a problem because in many of our Churches today.... big small, short or tall… we have a problem with order.
This problem with order has created some of the problems that we see on a regular basis
people unable to submit to authority and unable to submit to leadership...
they fall out and now we have a ministry startup and now you have a boutique ministry for Church hurt people who got they feelings hurt by Pastor.
And so we have people who are not using ministry to glorify themselves but they are using ministry as a pity party and at this party their gifts are a title, a cross, a shirt, and a front row seat on the pew.
And we have people who are prostituting God’s promise by using their gifts to glorify themselves or somebody else rather than glorify God.
We have boutique ministries that are personality driven rather than God driven...
1 Peter 5:1-8
1 Peter 5:1-8
So in the scripture we see that Peter is writing to the Church.