Whose Work Is It Anyways

Recently, I attended a book tour for Killing Cockroaches by Tony Morgan. Tony had some great insights and thoughts. Here's one that stuck with me...

----------

Now these are the gifts of the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-12 NLT)

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up. You mean God's work rests upon God's people? The short and long answers are yes. Regardless, we prefer to punt this responsibility to the pastors and preachers. After all, let's keep evangelism where it belongs...in the pews. People come to the pews. How they get there is a little foggy. But, once there, the pastors and preachers do their thing. They preach to the pews, as we sit and smile and pretend our lives are the perfect sunset. Let's review. Come to the pews. Preach to the pews. Sit, smile, and pretend. Call it a pew mentality.

This mentality racks up the victims, including myself. It's comforting. It's nonthreatening. It's warming. Let's be honest...it's just flat out easy! The one thing it's not is engaging. What did Paul say again? Something about equipping me and you to build up the church. Ok. Slow down a notch and allow this truth to sink in. ME and YOU. Who? ME and YOU. One more time. ME and YOU.

So, no more belly aching, complaining, finger pointing, griping, or name calling. Evangelism must no longer be an event. An event is planned. An event is scheduled. An event has a start and finish. Evangelism must be a lifestyle. Bottom line...God's people must be engaging!

----------

Fairly obvious God is trying to tell me something...perhaps about my personal life. :-) After all, there's always room for improvement. Right? Any thoughts?