Kids and Babies

We love kids and babies.  

Twice in the life of this blog, posts have gone viral much to my surprise.  Both of those posts have been about kids and/or babies.  We love kids and babies.   And we in spiritual communities want and need them.

But there’s something we need even more than children in our congregations. We need to be clear on why we exist as a church.

I regularly ask congregational leaders why their church exists.  The answers include something like these:

• This church has been important to my family for generations.
• We have a meaningful history.
• The Presbytery believed that a Presbyterian presence was needed in this part of town.
• We need to preserve our traditions.
• Our building has architectural significance.

God didn’t call us to be the church for the purpose of perpetuating institutions, serving individual families, creating attractive edifices, or establishing certain brands of theology.  God calls us to make disciples, to reach out to broken people in the name of Jesus, to love our neighbors, to be equipped to minister in the image of Christ, to be spiritually formed in community.

I believe that congregations that do these things, that are these things will thrive. Are we interested in being this kind of church?

Image source is unknown.