Friday, July 14, 2006

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The Kingdom of God grows.

4:27 PM    2 comments

I am going to use this in my sermon this Sunday, I trust this will be provocative...

A post by Mark Wilson at Revitalize Your Church:

* Percentage of McDonald's franchises that did not sell a hamburger last year: 0%
* Percentage of Ace Hardware stores that did not sell a hammer last year: 0%
* Percentage of Salvation Army outlets that did not help a needy person last year: 0%
* Percentage of state universities that did not educate a student last year: 0%
* Percentage of airlines that did not fly a plane last year: 0%
* Percentage of WalMarts that did not sell merchandise last year: 0%

* Percentage of that did not receive a member by profession of faith last year: 43%

I choose to remove the name of the denomination, because truth is we could fill in the blank with many kinds of churches, and perhaps even the church you or I are attending. The issue isn't about numbers, it is about the expectation that the Kingdom of God lived out is a Kingdom of God that provokes transformation.

Any thoughts?

2 comments:

Definitely provocative. Makes us stop and think, "What's really important here, anyway?"

As we're accustomed to drilling into our people here in Syracuse, "The number one priority in the kingdom of God is the salvation of souls."

William,
Thanks for the plug! I hope it went well in your sermon. By the way -- the denomination you didn't mention was "Methodist" -- but you are absolutely right. When I heard that terrible statistic, I contacted my own headquarters to find out how we (Wesleyans) fared in receiving members by profession of faith. The answer? Exactly the same thing -- 43% of Wesleyan Churches did not receive a single member by profession of faith. My guess is that it's typical of all denominations.

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