#3 What are we willing to sacrifice?
Every business faces tough
choices. Churches, too. When it comes to defining our mission, we
must ask this all-important question, “What are we willing to do to be
successful?” If our mission is to take
the gospel into our community and our world to make disciples (cf. Matt. 28)
then what are we willing to sacrifice in order to put the time, money and
energies into making that happen? It’s a
good question, isn’t it? Would we be
willing to sacrifice money? What
percentage of our budget would we be willing to dedicate to mission and
outreach? I want to thank everyone for
an outstanding special contribution last month dedicated to just this, local
outreach. Over $7,000 was given
specifically for this. That is
awesome! That is $7,000 that could have
been used elsewhere… on our facility, on church-fellowships or any number of
ways. Yet, we chose to sacrifice that
for local outreach. That may be the
easiest thing to sacrifice, however.
What about time? If you’re like me, time is the most precious
commodity you’ve got. Everybody has a
limited amount of it and some of the biggest decisions we make in life is how
to spend it. Would we be willing to
sacrifice our time towards teaching the lost, towards feeding the hungry,
towards building relationships that matter with people who need to know the
Lord? For me, time spent in these areas
means time away from doing other things… other things like ballgames or family
outings; time working in the yard or catching up on things at home; time preparing
for a lesson or time or time just relaxing.
What time are you willing to sacrifice to be about the mission of the
church? I am so grateful for our
deacons. Many of them spend untold
amounts of time away from these things and from other things they enjoy doing
to be about the work of the church. They
are the ones who make things happen and for that I am so grateful! On Saturday, November 2nd Hands of
Mercy is holding a Fall Mobile Food Pantry for families in need in the
community. Once again it will be held at
the Fairgrounds and once again they are in need of volunteers. If you would be willing to sacrifice some of
your time and energy on that Saturday morning, they will begin at 10am sorting
and unloading the truck. It is a great
opportunity to be a blessing to our community… but it will require
sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice
for the mission?
