Last Sunday morning, I was a guest speaker at the Syi-le Church near us. I know most of that congregation, but there's always a few that I don't know. As I was getting to the climax a man in the back raised his hand. It's not very often that you get someone wanting to make a comment during a sermon on Sunday morning worship. It happened when I was speaking at a retreat in central China, but in that case it was a young girl who had never been to any kind of religious service before and didn't know what was "proper."
I paused and acknowledged him and he made a comment that supported what I was saying, so that was pretty cool. I went on from there. A couple of minutes later, during a short pause, this man stood up again to make a comment, and this time he didn't bother with raising his hand. This one caught me a little off guard, but again it wasn't anything that was a problem, and it did follow with what I was saying. Probably less than a minute later, it happened again, but it was more than just a sentence this time. This continued at least another 5 -7 times, each time getting longer, and closer together. And, none was against what I was saying, but each time it made it harder and harder to bring it back to the point that I was trying to make as I concluded, and made it harder to come to the conclusion.
As you might imagine, I was not completely enjoying this anymore. It was making it really hard to concentrate and hard to conclude. I wasn't sure if he was a church member, or just someone who happened to walk in, so I wasn't sure what to do, but I can tell you one thought that started running through my mind and coming back when I had already dismissed it. I wanted to say, "OK, do you want to preach this, or should I?"
At that point, I had lost focus, and by that I don't mean just that I could not focus on my sermon. I had lost focus on what I was supposed to be doing. What bothered me was that I had lost control and didn't know how to get it back. But, what made me think I should be in control? The man came up to talk with me afterward, and it was obvious that he knew a lot about Christianity (unusual here in Taiwan) but it was just as obvious that he was not a Christian.
What does this have to do with the topic of the Great Commission, Mission, and the Church? Well maybe it seems like a stretch, but it shows how easy it is to forget the goal in order to just keep on doing what you think you should be doing. Preaching is for the purpose of influencing people. So, I am invited to speak in a church. when I speak. How is that I can so quickly get distracted from the goal--of influencing people, moving people--to start focusing on the sermon itself, the tool.
And, I think that's the case with many churches in relation to their mission's program. We go through the motions, but forget the goal. And, the church is judged on how many people came through their program rather than what influence they are having on the world that doesn't know God and on their fellow believers who want to know Him better. And, when we forget the real goal and substitute a program or a plan, we betray our cause and find that we have often done more harm than good.
The church needs to evaluate itself in terms, not of what they are doing, but why they are doing it. It's people, not a program or a plan.
well said!
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