Church in Nepal
Last November I was in Nepal. For the first part of the week I was privileged to work with church planters who had planted over 400 churches in eastern Nepal, equipping them to study the Bible more effectively and thus help those in the churches they had planted.
The last part of the time there my translator and I traveled around the villages speaking at several churches. The picture above is one of those churches. The people in the picture walk 4 – 5 hours to get to the church each Saturday for worship.
Church this Morning
I went to church this morning. We had lights, fog machines, electric guitars, synthesizers, drums, projected video and images, all of which I like and use some of – well no fog – in my workshops.
Pretty sure nobody in the room walked to church. The cost of one of the lights would have sustained the family of a Nepali pastor for about a year.
We Should Grow… But…
I have been a consultant in church growth. I worked with one of the leaders in that vertical for two years. I get the music and the production. I have been at some churches that have done that incredibly well.
Contrast
This morning though I was struck by the contrast in the two pictures above. The simplicity of the one and the production of the other. The hunger to walk 5 hours to hear the word of God and the desire to complain that the songs that I like were not sung.
What is Congruent with the Scripture?
It made me wonder, and I am sure I do not have an answer for this, why we are doing what we are doing? If it is the case that as believers we are to be abiding in Christ and His Word, John 15:1 – 16, if the purpose of the church is to use our gifts to build up the body of Christ, Ephesians 4:11 - 16, what are we promoting and how are we promoting it? What do we measure, why are we measuring it?
Last November I was in Nepal. For the first part of the week I was privileged to work with church planters who had planted over 400 churches in eastern Nepal, equipping them to study the Bible more effectively and thus help those in the churches they had planted.
Church this Morning
I went to church this morning. We had lights, fog machines, electric guitars, synthesizers, drums, projected video and images, all of which I like and use some of – well no fog – in my workshops.
We Should Grow… But…
I have been a consultant in church growth. I worked with one of the leaders in that vertical for two years. I get the music and the production. I have been at some churches that have done that incredibly well.
Contrast
This morning though I was struck by the contrast in the two pictures above. The simplicity of the one and the production of the other. The hunger to walk 5 hours to hear the word of God and the desire to complain that the songs that I like were not sung.
What is Congruent with the Scripture?
It made me wonder, and I am sure I do not have an answer for this, why we are doing what we are doing? If it is the case that as believers we are to be abiding in Christ and His Word, John 15:1 – 16, if the purpose of the church is to use our gifts to build up the body of Christ, Ephesians 4:11 - 16, what are we promoting and how are we promoting it? What do we measure, why are we measuring it?
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