Rest stop or Destination

When the faithful saturate their schedules with Christian events at Christian venues with Christian people, the world has a hard time believing we hold the rest of the world in high esteem.

—Gabe Lyons

Ever stopped at a rest stop on a long trip...those are great and peaceful. There’s snacks and picnic tables. They are great, but I’d never want to live there. Why? Because it’s a rest stop, I have a destination.

Have you ever been to a church where you feel like every minute you turn around, you have another meeting to attend? Maybe you've looked at your schedule, and said "Man, I'm at church every other night this week...sometimes, back to back." I know I have.

The writer of Hebrews tells us in places that getting together as a church is important and should have priority. Whether it’s in a Worship Gathering or a Life Group or two Christians having lunch to share life and encourage each other, no doubt it's important. We encourage and are encouraged. Life's hard and God knew that having someone next to us that is going through the same thing is valuable and He created us to respond to that....but....

The church has a mission and a purpose for being here on Earth. There's a reason that we don’t just follow Jesus straight to Heaven immediately. 

We are left to help others understand who Christ is and to honor God with our lives in doing so. Most people who meet together as a church, are Christ followers, so there aren't that many people who don't know Jesus at church meetings. That creates a tension. 

Should we stay or should we go? We should do both. Families who raise their children without a good balance, don't develop a mature understanding of the mission to share Christ because it must both be done through teaching AND in practice. It’s the place we can’t wait to get back to or the place we can’t wait to leave.

Because of the tension, church gatherings must always be rest stops, never destinations. When you are a faithful Christ follower you must remember that you haven’t arrived, you just started the journey. 

Craig Groeschel, a pastor/author, says that if you want to reach the people that no one is reaching you have to go to the places that no one is going...and you can't do that, if all your free time is spent meeting at church.

Holes need to exist in our church schedules for people to be free to go, to know people who don't know Christ but there has to be a balance. You never follow Christ well without a balance of this tension, and that means that sometimes Christians need to evaluate their church schedule and drop something.

At Bay West, we tell people prioritize the worship service, meeting with a small group and then love Jesus by serving the world.  The extra events...take them on a need/can/want basis, in light of the Mission to change the world.  Does that mean that we don't take these events seriously?  Absolutely not... If we plan something, you can make sure it's not a schedule filler, but its' important enough to take time off the field.  Also, for that reason, we have HIGH expectations for the time that you aren't at church...we expect ALL of your life to be spent in line with the mission of God, changing the entire city of Palm Bay, one person, one influence, one story, one heart at a time.

Is there balance with your outside activities and your church activities? Are you approaching your outside activities in light of your mission? Are you just going into autopilot? Consider the mission your destination.

Remember...enjoy the rest stops, but live for the destination.

To students: The greatest scholastic advice I've ever heard

Students, as you enter the home stretch, getting closer and closer to putting another year of school behind you, I pray that you finish this year strong. As the weather gets warmer and the year seems to have gone on forever, it can be tempting to let up or slow up, and coast on in. Do your best...

In keeping with that tradition, I'm going to give you the greatest piece of scholastic advice that I've ever heard. This piece of advice is one, that if you incorporate it into your life, can make all the difference, not just with your grades, but in your job performance and successes afterwards.

It comes from my mother-in-law. (It's also something my mother practiced in our home as well.) Katye has told me several times that in the later years of high school, when school work started to pile up and their church services met on Sunday evenings, there was always a temptation to put off the paper, or the studying until Sunday night, and use that as an excuse to stay home from church, because "school work" is more important...God will always be there.

But that was never an option...Jon and Marie would have none of that. They would always say that an "A" or a "B" might soon be forgotten, but teaching a child who was most important in their home would never go away, and being consistent with that value was important. Marie would refer to 1 Samuel 2:30, where the Lord spoke to man and said "...But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me." That's the Message Version, but you get the point.

If you put your schoolwork ahead of God and think lightly of Him, that will not have Him on your side when the time of the test or the paper comes....and honestly, if I want ANYONE on my side at that point, it's the Lord.

The truth is that most of the time it isn't really schoolwork that nudges God out at all. We prioritize our activities on Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, a couple of hours of sleep and a myriad of other things that we are actually putting ahead of God...we just find it easier to justify in our own minds by saying it's "school work". If you really want to look for the priority, skip the soccer game or the afternoon at the lake, or leave an hour early, and study on the way home. It's VERY easy to find the hour and a half of travel-time and worship that we think is impossible to overcome, when we get real with ourselves and put priorities in order.

Don't forget Proverbs 21:2 which reminds us of our own "endless capacity to justify" our actions, but how God is never fooled for a millisecond by things that we even try to fool ourselves with.

How did that strategy fair? Shouldn't Katye and I have failed out and been last in our class, underachieved and such, because of the 2 hours of Sunday night church (that most people don't even have anymore)...actually we both had full ride academic scholarships to head into college with. I don't trot that out to brag, but to say that it is important to honor the Lord and those lessons are still teaching me long after the grades from Calculus are long gone.

I don't know if that's how it will show up for you, but it will always be more beneficial than establishing any sort of home system that puts God second or third. When your very home system is setup to fail at honoring the Lord, you just preach hypocrisy when you try to sing about how there's no one greater than God in your life to your children...believe you me, their "genuine" meter is on wide open in the teenage years looking for things to challenge, whether they tell you or not. Consistency and integrity on your part is huge, Christian parents. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will NOT depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6)...because if there is one thing you do want, it is the Lord in your corner to honor you, because you are honoring Him.