Are you the missing piece to your local church?
This is written for everyone who takes commitment to a local body of believers lightly.
I am not going to pull any punches with you at all. You have no idea how much you are hurting yourself, hurting your church and discouraging your pastor.
I don’t believe you realize the importance of a single member of the body of Christ, specifically your importance.
In order for any church to fulfill its vision, every individual is crucial. Your pastor depends on you to fulfill the vision God has given him for the body. He cannot fulfill it himself. If he could, he would, but instead he relies on you to stand with him and commit yourself to the path Jesus has laid out for your assembly.
In a large church, the absence of a single member hardly has any impact at all. In a congregation of hundreds of thousands, the non participation of one person will hardly be felt.
However in small church, it leaves a hole the size of a chasm. Believe me, the effects are felt by everyone.
We live in an age where church attendance or participation is optional in minds too many. Usually the option of taking oneself out is the preferred one.
I have said over and over again: There are things Jesus wants to impart to you that can only be received through consistent, meaningful connection with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
There is power when believers get together to worship and learn more about the Word of God.
The Scriptures are clear about how a local church should function,
Ephesians 4 : 11-16 tells us:
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
I am flabbergasted that a number of Christians do not really believe this. Why else would there be so many lone rangers out there who are sour on the church. They stay away preferring to serve Jesus alone. This is not Biblical behaviour and is contrary to the purpose of God for his people. These unfortunate people deprive themselves of support, comfort and authority. Furthermore, they never get the opportunity to minister their gifts to others. Consequently, they become self-centred, self-conscious and worse, leave themselves wide open for loneliness, helplessness and weakness should adversity come or the enemy attacks.
I can’t count the number of Christians who are suffering simply because they are isolated. Because they condition themselves to avoid the body of Christ they are easily taken out by the smallest of challenges.
What’s more saddening, is that they cannot fathom what a blessing they are to their pastors and fellow believers when they DO show up. They have so much to offer. Without them the church staggers. The ministry flounders. Things stagnate and sometimes never get off the ground because they are the missing piece of the puzzle.
If you are one of those, for your own sake and the sake of the Kingdom of God, shake off the shackles that bind you into isolation and connect with the House of God.
Never think you don’t make a difference. You do! You absolutely DO! Just ask your pastor.
