There's a lot on my mind as I sit here in the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Kansas City while the rest of my family is asleep. We're on our way to Texas to drop Seth off.
I'm praying for Emmanuel Baptist Church, and that God would refine it. I'm praying people will look to Pastor Kevin as the leader God has placed over them. I'm praying people will drop their pre-concieved notions of what a church is supposed to look like and go back to scripture to see what a church really looks like. That prayer is not just for EBC. That is for a ton of churches. I believe God has great things in store for EBC, and in order to get to those great things, there will be some rough times ahead, but I believe God has the end result in mind. I thought about whether to post this or not, but I feel if I post, people will pray. And I want people to pray. And especially if you go to EBC and read this, God has burdened me for EBC. I'm praying that God will move in mighty ways and EBC will become the hub of a church-planting movement in Southern Minnesota. I'm praying that if asked the question,
"If your church suddenly disappeared from your community, would it miss it?"
our community will one day soon say yes. But I fear that with EBC, as with many churches, the answer to that question right now is no.
Did you know that North America is the only continent in which Christianity is in decline? I find it odd that many churches send missionaries to other countries, expecting them to be like the culture in order to better communicate the gospel in ways the culture understands, but we often forget we are called to be missionaries in our own culture. Right now, the church has divorced itself from our culture here in North America. We are no longer communicating the gospel in a way people understand, because we are sticking and holding hard to the methods of the past. We are in denial that we live in a post-Judeo/Christian culture with post Judeo-Christian values. We must open our eyes to the mission field around us and learn how to communicate the gospel in a way that people in our culture understand and connect with. We have missed the boat. We must repent and move forward.
This xanga is just an entry of thoughts about the church in North America. We have done something terribly wrong. We have divorced ourself from our culture and no longer communicate the gospel in a way people understand. We must do things drastically different.
People will no longer go to worship gatherings. We must go to them. Jesus sent us out, He didn't tell us to ask people to come to us. We must be in the marketplace. We must live amongst people who are not Christ-followers. We must be intentional about building relationships with those who are not Christ-followers, so we can be the gospel to people. This is a lot of random thoughts tonight. We are called to be radical for Jesus. So let's be radical. Maybe someday I'll organize my thoughts a little better than this....
(BTW, my summer was amazing!) | 
