The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.
Mike Stachura
Along our mission path we have encountered an attitude in many churches that can best be described as low self-esteem. Many churches have given up hope that they can be world changers. They tend to look at attendance or financial numbers as their only indicators of spiritual health and they tend to forget what Jesus did with a handful of followers. We ought to remember that the people to whom Jesus give the Great Commission stood empty handed on that hill outside of Galilee. They were the only religious people without a temple to meet in or a treasury to draw from. They had not hymn book to sing from nor did they have an ecclesiastical manual to tell them what to do or how to do it. They had no New Testament to read or written doctrine to study. They were simply a movement of people who had experienced the resurrection of Christ and who were motivated by their love for God and their love for their neighbors. As they lived that love out they became the people who turned the world upside down! It is amazing what can happen when we cease to measure our reach by seating capacity and more to the point how many of our seats are occupied but instead focus on our sending capacity.
May we live and die for greater things than seating capacity. May we live in the knowledge that we are world changers because we follow Jesus. May we die in the knowledge that we have done everything we can to send some so that many will know the saving grace of our Lord!
Reblogged this on Praying for the millennials.