As I read Jeremiah 14:1-6 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jeremiah%2014:1-6&version=NIV) this morning I couldn't help but think of those poor people in Somalia and Northeastern Kenya. There are so many people in desperate need.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/10/somalia-drought-worst-humanitarian-crisis-_n_894072.html
A pastor friend said to me: "Why is this happening? Why are we allowing people to starve to death? Why is the world not listening?" The sad reality of her questions is that for the most part the world is preoccupied with other matters. There has been no media coverage to speak of. It seems that only drastic measures will get the media to sit up and take notice.
The worst part of it though is that the global community of the church really hasn't taken notice. The magnitude of this disaster deserves the full attention of the entire global church community. I heard the other day that the annual income of the North American church community is in the billions of dollars. I suspect that many of those dollars are spent on self-improvement programs for the average Christian and on church building maintenance and improvements. The average new church facility with all of its bells and whistles costs in the vicinity of a million plus dollars and many of them go up every year.
It seems that ministry for many North American churches has become more about empire building than about helping others around the world. How many times has the comment been made in our churches, "Well, we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others." Where on earth is the sacrifice in that!!??
What is the purpose of the building anyway? Probably many would say that it's about quality in order to appeal to our affluent society of people. People won't come to a facility that is run down and decrepit. Maybe we are mixed up on our appeal. We are appealing to their affluent lifestyles instead of appealing to a servant's heart.
If I understand scripture correctly, Jesus never said "Go, build a great facility for worship for people to come to have all of the comforts of home. Build it and they will come." Unfortunately that appeal works, but maybe for the wrong reasons. So many people are looking for a place to go and simply "chill out" from ministry altogether. A friend of mine once told me that he could go to his church and sit in the front row and "pick his nose" and no one would even notice that he was there. Not a good comment, but you get the picture of what he meant.
Don't get me wrong, I think buildings are important. But they are only important to the real cause of Christ and the real cause is not about the building, but a calling to ministry from God.
Therefore, a building should be nothing more than a point of mission to serve a two fold purpose. 1. To come and be discipled. 2. To be deployed for mission into ministry. When it becomes nothing more than a gathering place for the saints, and our main focus is to gather as many in as possible, then we have missed the true mark of our calling from God - deployment. God's not finished with the world yet, why should we be?
Pray for the people of Somalia and other parts of Africa who are affected by the terrible drought. Amen.
Blessings,
-Leo
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