My Dream Church

I just want to praise the Lord for his goodness and patience. I am enjoying working with Him! And yes, I have hopes and dreams for our church too. I dream of a church that is:

1. Grace-Centered. Don’t you love to be in a church where God’s love is ingrained in its very soul, life and culture? God’s love for you and me will never change, will never fail, and will never end. He came in the flesh, lived in this stinking planet, climb Mt. Calvary , and died for you and me on the cross. By His sacrifice He forgave all of our sins – past, present, future – and declared us righteous in his eyes. That is grace! If God did all that for you and me, shouldn’t we do the same?

I dream of a church which is grace-borne, grace-driven, grace-centered, grace-filled. A church that is focused on God’s love , living-out his grace and busy sharing His grace rather than just maintaining a set of standards. A church that is open for all sinners whether they dress, talk, and sing like us or not. A church that is passionate for Jesus. I long for a grace-revolution in our churches. Churches that will be known as loving churches not just churches with high standards. There’s nothing we can do that will stop God from loving us nor is there anything we can do that will make Him love us more. When our church does the same in loving sinners unconditionally, churches will grow.

2. Worship-Focused. Worship is at the very heart of the Adventist message. Yet it seems that we are far more interested in inviting people to worship on the right day than worshiping God with the right heart and spirit. Steve Pruitt puts it this way “I personally believe that worship should be the first priority of every church. Worship is meant for God and our most important ministry is to minister to him. Therefore, it is my opinion that most of our money, energy and time should be spent on the worship ministry.” We need to put worship at the very center of our church life and personal lives. Worship should be the ultimate goal of every ministry in the church including teaching, preaching, evangelism etc. This includes improving our church services that center on interactive relationships and service.

3. Spiritually-Growing. We are discipling and empowering believers to become God’s ministers. We aim for a thriving community of believers who are growing personally. Our deepest desire should be to produce disciples who have a passion for Jesus and yearn to worship him in spirit and truth. Instead of maintaining the traditional information-centered Sabbath-school classes we must strived for application-centered small group classes.

4. Culturally-Relevant. No matter how good the Good News is, it can’t be appreciated unless we communicate it to people in language they understand. We are to carry God’s message using the medium relevant to the target group we are trying to reach. Methods that are obsolete need to be reevaluated. God’s church is dynamic. We need to reach sinners through culturally-relevant forms and means of transmitting God’s message. We need to take a careful look at our music traditions. It took about a hundred years for the Christian church to accept hymns. Now the church is facing a serious struggle in accepting worship and praise choruses as a medium of worship expression. The new generation want to be challenged intellectually. They are interested in knowing the practicality of our doctrines and the connection to Christ. We need to make the gospel relevant to each generation of believers from cradle roll to pathfinders, from early teens to youth. As of now there is no church program for young adults.

5. Community-Oriented. People come to know Christ not through the beliefs we profess but through the love we express. Our churches need to lead in the forefront of community services. As the popular slogan goes, “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.” God’s church is a caring church. It is a loving church. Too often we do community work when we have a hidden agenda of converting them rather than simply loving them.

6. Child-Friendly . Our children are God’s most precious gifts. How they are trained and nurtured today will determine the future of God’s church. The church is always one generation away from extinction. Win your children for Jesus today, then you change the world tomorrow. Our churches need to have child-friendly atmosphere conducive to spiritual growth. They need to sense God loves them just the way they are and wants them to grow more and become like Jesus.

6. Evangelism-Directed. We need to put a proper balance between event-oriented evangelism and process-oriented evangelism. Our church is on the right track. We are passionate about our mission in reaching the lost. But we have concentrated too much on expensive , highly-emotional, event-oriented evangelism like the public crusades. We need to put people in the process of discovery, growth, and small group interaction. We need to put them in a church environment conducive to seekers of God’s truth.

The Lord bless his church as his vessel overflowing with grace!