What I Still Can't Stand...

I love our church. I love what God is doing through our church.

 

I can’t wait for each Sunday…worshiping God as our band leads, meeting new people, hearing dramatic stories of Gospel transformation every week, witnessing entire families accept Christ as their Savior, or watching our volunteers in action as a bridge to the love of Jesus. To me, nothing is more rewarding.

I consistently walk away so inspired and overwhelmed by God’s grace. One Sunday in particular in 2011, new people flooded into our services (We grew by 80 people that one Sunday), several people accepted Christ as their Savior, the worship was amazing, and God clearly transformed hearts.  We started the year praying for a move of God in ways that we couldn't imagine. We were experiencing that move of God!

Then what I have described for you before inevitably happened again. I walked back into my office and saw this picture. A picture I see every day hanging above my office door. I was reminded of the 60,000 people in our community who have no clue about what is going on at Centerpoint…the 60,000 who have never believed or have left the “church” at some point in their lives. And as great as the service was that morning, they were no closer to a relationship with Jesus. I can hardly stand the thought of that. It keeps me restless and passionate for what needs done in our community.

I can’t stand the fact that this area has so many churches, many of which are reaching “church people”, while so many others have never heard the Gospel and are right outside our door. These are the people we come in contact with at the grocery store, in our neighborhoods, and at the gym. They are the people we do life with every day. So what do we do? Many of you are investing & inviting every week and people are coming and lives are being changed…but what else can we do? I believe a great place to start is the same way we started off 2011 - praying & fasting.

We easily lose sight of what God wants to do in our world. This is especially true in the arena of reaching unbelievers in our sphere of influence. If we’re not careful, we will drift into comfortable huddles with other believers without reaching or praying big for those around us.  Maybe we are intimidated or just caught up with life that we don’t think about it. But as we begin to pray, “God , I surrender my will” and “I declare my dependence” I believe God will ignite a passion for the things he is passionate about – like reaching people who need Jesus.

The good news is that our church is growing. The bad news is the number of un-churched in our area is growing much faster. I still can’t stand that. But what if that trend turned around? As our trust grows and our view of God expands, I believe we will see that happen. Our trust in God will be activated and our concern for the un-churched in our sphere of influence will be ignited. What could happen in our church and community if we prayed in such a way that our will conformed to his will?

Frankly, I have no idea what will happen, but I know we had a small taste of what's possible in 2011. What might God do through us in 2012. It starts with “God, we know you can, we are asking if You’re willing”.  I believe this will be an incredible, life altering, church transforming journey.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and join us. Let us know what God does through your 21 day journey via our twitter handle (@CenterpointFL) or on our facebook page.

Bryant