I Love the Church

As a child, I remember our Walnut St C of C in Dickson, TN as a source of so many things including fun! It was large, relational and creative even in the 60's and I remember momentum kicking in when the younger, cooler pastor took the helm. We met every Sun morn (2-3 hrs), Sun night, Wed night, had dinners on the ground, played tag and hide'n seek until our parents dragged us away. Those seemed like simpler times even though our parents both worked until 6, had bridge club, the country club, etc.

Since then, I've met thousands of pastors and visited hundreds of churches. And no matter the brand of donut, people who come to church are still looking for a spiritual experience, for answers and for solid truth they can consider, & then take hold of. Our first priority is to teach the good news, the truth about Christ, who He is, all the great things that result from repenting and trusting in Him. In marketing terms, there are easily enough features & benefits from trusting in Christ for a pastor to plan out an entire teaching year! People are looking for peace, for protection, for joy, for hope, for strength and more, and most people I meet aren't looking to the church for that. Christ's ministry is made clear in 2 verses Luke 4:18-19 and he left us to do the same. Like most things, it's easy to make the church all about us. But it's still about Him. He's still the answer.