Pastor's Blog: "Remembering Why We Exist"
| | Dr. Wayne Splawn
I am scheduled to travel today with a group from our church to Denver, Colorado. We are going to Denver to support a new church start that will have its first official worship service this Sunday. As I have thought about this new church plant, I have thought a lot about the fact that our church was once a young church start as well. A group of people decided to plant a new church in Crestline Village for the purpose of reaching an emerging community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A lot of hard work goes into starting a new church. You must find a place to meet. You must gather a group of people willing to use their time, talents, and treasures to help others know and grow in Jesus Christ. And you must remain faithful in the face of setbacks that will most certainly occur along the way. However, starting a new church is not just all hard work. There is also a lot of excitement involved as church members are motivated to keep going in the face of challenges because they believe so in the importance of the mission at hand. There is also a general belief that every person must show up and do their part in the early days. The thinking goes, “If I do not show up and serve, who will?”
If churches are not careful, they can easily lose the passion and excitement that once characterized the early days of a church’s existence. The further they get from their founding, the more likely churches are to lose sight of the mission that must be at the forefront of everything they do. When this happens church members are in danger of becoming consumers who attend church because of what they receive from their participation in a community of faith, rather than people who are motivated to do anything they can to help others experience more of the abundant and eternal life God would have for them to know through faith in Jesus Christ.
Much has changed since our church first assembled in Crestline Village and eventually obtained the land that sits at the corner of Montevallo and Overbrook roads. However, our mission has not changed. We are still called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to people in our city, state, nation, and world. We are still called to be faithful stewards of our time, talents, and treasures so that people inside and outside of our church might experience the grace and mercy of God.
As you make your way to church this Sunday, prayerfully ask the Lord to renew in you and in our congregation a sense of purpose and mission that will inspire us to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ in our day. There will certainly be setbacks along the way and the mission will require much from us. But, at the end of the day, the lives we touch will make it worth everything we will be called to give. I know this to be true, because mine is a life that has been powerfully impacted by the mission and ministry of Mountain Brook Baptist Church and it is my prayer that many other people will have the same testimony in the days and years to come.