By: James Smith
I love adventure. I like eating at restaurants that I’ve never eaten at before. I like going places I’ve never been before. I will often take a wrong road intentionally just to see what is there that I’ve been missing. I want to see countries, I’ve never seen before. I want to enjoy what is just ahead.
I want to enjoy some things in the spirit realm too. I look into the Bible and I see the Apostolics in the New Testament having an all night prayer meeting for Peter. The miracle to me was not Peter getting loosed from prison. The miracle to me was a body of believers putting their agendas, and personal motives aside long enough to agree that something had to be done about Peter’s condition.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins states "Good to Great companies do not focus on what to do to become great; they focus equally on what not to do and what to stop doing." We are too often seeking the next gimmick or program that will take us to where we’re desiring to go in the terms of church growth or revival. The problem with that is we start new things constantly but never do perfect them, only to go on to start something else without burying what we just gave up on.
As a result of that, we have our interests and labors so divided that many of our churches are dysfunctional with regards to evangelism, instead of being the driving evangelistic force that our Lord desires us to be.
There are a few things we can stop doing that would bring us closer to having Great evangelistic moves instead of simply good moves. I believe we would go from having good church to having Great church if we would stop trying to entertain one another. Too many of our musicians are all hung up trying to entertain the crowd instead of entertaining the presence of the Lord.
We have it all backwards. We think if we sing good enough. We think if the choir ever gets it all together we will really have church. We think if we hit the right note. We think if we gesture correctly as we sing. We think that somehow the crowd will be impressed enough to give their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ.
We can’t sing good enough to give someone salvation. You can’t sing good enough to heal a broken body. You can’t sing good enough to give deliverance to a drug addict. You can’s sing or play or act good enough to save even one person’s soul, so why don’t we just entertain the Lord with our singing? It might be that we could draw his presence closer with our sincerity and hunger to worship him. If He came closer there is no telling what could happen in this place before we leave here tonight!
We don’t have Great church because we have been satisfied with good church. We don’t have Great worship services, because we are satisfied with good worship services. We don’t have Great results from our evangelist labors, because we are satisfied with good results. We don’t have thousands come in, because we are satisfied with a dozen or two per year. Just enough to make up for the ones we lost this year. We don’t have Great moves of God because we are satisfied with good moves of God. We don’t have a Great walk with God, because we are comfortable with having a good walk with God.
According to Collins, to go from good to great requires “transcending the curse of competence.” What’s wrong with competence? Competence is GOOD!
Just because we had some measure of success, it shouldn’t satisfy us to the point that we don’t want to experience something far greater. Just because we had a little growth. Just because we had a little move. Just because “we liked what we felt in the service” is not enough. We have to expect far greater things from a God of the miraculous. We can’t be satisfied with a few being added to the church in a year. We have to expect something far greater than that to happen. We can’t say that one or two per month is good enough. We have to expect one or two dozen per week.
You might say "there is no way our church could have that kind of revival". I say, "you are right", if you are thinking with mans wisdom. However, if you are thinking by FAITH, then anything is possible!
third 1/3 of the prize
