Perceptions and other items

Today I gave the report from Annual Conference to the church. There were 161 people listening, I was not nervous, and they looked to be unenthused. To a point I can understand about not being enthused to hear a report for a conference, which you do not understand. I think the most uplifting thing I heard all day was when Ryan said something to the effect, “that a lot of people come back from conferences and say, why can’t our church be like that. I came back from the conference thinking, we have something going on in Big B”. While I was getting ready to go to church I walked into the “Cave” (Spare Bed Room) and heard the chorus to Centerfield. It is a gone by John Fogerty about baseball. The chorus line goes something like this, “Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today, Put me in coach, I’m ready to play, look at me I can be in centerfield.” I think that as a whole most people would not admit that a secular song has spoken a word of god to them. There was something in that moment, akin to when Isaiah said, “Send Me!” (Isaiah 6:8). It is exciting to see people in church who say, Put me in Coach, I just wish that more people would do it, because they do not.

Perceptions (written while at annual conference)
What is your perception about ministers? When one says, “I am a preacher,” do you think, “I hope he does not want to talk about Jesus,” or do you think, “Here is someone that can bring people to our church.” What is it that brings people into a church, is it the building, a pretty lawn, a nice van, or relationships? It is interesting that church members rely so heavily on the minister to bring new people to church. I would admit that I am guilty of doing that, thinking that it is the pastor’s job to bring people to the church. While it is not the sole responsibility of the pastor to bring people into the church, he does play a part in this. I think that it is the laity responsible to bring people into the church. If you look at the number, there is 1 pastor and say 200 people in the congregation. How many more people will the pastor touch the 200 laity. I dare say that the members of the church are exposed to a far greater amount of people in their day to day activities then a pastor . Beside, the pastor generally is working with people who are in the church.