CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF CONGREGATIONS

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Back to Church Sunday” is this weekend. It is to call the Church back to its mission and to extend an open invitation to those who’ve never attended or have been away. It’s one Sunday -- always the third Sunday in September -- set aside for churches to rally together, welcome their communities, and remind people that hope is found in Jesus and in a church family that cares.

CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF CONGREGATIONS

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another -- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  (Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV)

Consider the impact of congregations on your own life. Suppose someone could extract from your life all the influences that God has had on you through faith communities.  Imagine if you could pull out of your mind and heart all the thousands of sermons you have heard, the tens of thousands of hymns and praise songs you have sung, the Scripture readings and pastoral prayers that you have heard.  Remove all the people from your life and memory whom you have come to know and from whom you have learned and with whom you have worked -- the pastors, friends, colleagues, laypersons, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers.  Extract from your soul all the work projects, the meetings, the conversations, the service initiatives, the soup kitchens, the mission trips, hospital visits and support from others you have experienced.  Extract all the weddings, funerals, volunteer hours, stewardship campaigns, prayer vigils, children’s programs, mission fairs, camp experiences, and youth ministries.

If you could remove from your life all the influences congregations have ever had on you, who would you be? You’d be someone substantially different from who you are now.  The congregations to which you have belonged -- their people and pastors, their ministries and teachings, their small groups and programs, their worship and service, their music and rituals, their communities and caring -- these have been the means God has used to form who you are.  They have shaped you.       

Congregations are a primary means by which God reaches down into our lives to work on our behalf.  God uses congregations to create us anew, to claim us as God’s own, and to call us to God’s service.  It is through congregations that God’s spirit shapes how we understand ourselves, how we relate to our families, how we view community, and how we participate in the world. 

-- Adapted from Robert Schnase in his blog “The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations”