Here is my final re:post from a 2010 string of blogs after the 33 Chilean miners were rescued after being trapped for 69 days. You can read the other three posts on the home page of the blog:
It sure seems, at times, like we do pretty much everything we can as Christians and God’s Church to make it as difficult as possible to accomplish anything or reach anyone. I don’t think the devil is an idiot, and I don’t think it’s too far to say that often times what our enemy does is NOT attack us from the outside, but from the INSIDE. Divide and conquer! As Jesus said in Matthew 13:25 “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart.” A house divided itself will not stand! Is there any wonder then when it comes to the rescue mission God has issued to His church, that DIVISION would ensue? Like I said, the devil is NOT an idiot!
So what if the Chilean mine rescue was performed like the church?
— Maybe they would have gathered to take a vote on who was FOR or AGAINST the rescue.
— Surely there would have been someone there making certain Roberts Rules of Order were being perfectly followed, and if they were not, time would have been wasted by going back to fix the mistake.
— Nominations would have been made for who should be in charge of the rescue. Who should be the treasurer for the rescue. Committees would have been established that would talk about everything but accomplish nothing.
— A decorations team would have been established to choose the color of the rescuers uniforms and what kind of carpet should be used in the “rescue office” that would be placed on site.
— It’s almost certain that at some point, those who were FOR the rescue and those who were AGAINST the rescue would have split into two different rescue teams who decided they were going to go about the rescue in a different way. Or if it got really bad, those who wanted BLUE shirts and those who wanted RED shirts would have decided they just COULDN’T solve those differences, even though peoples LIVES were at stake, and they’d have to start two different rescue groups providing two kinds of uniforms…of course that would take a vote too.
One Scripture I’ve been praying over Element Church is “Lord unify us according to YOUR purpose!” I started praying that prayer specifically when I read Ezra 3:1 “…when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled in Jerusalem with a UNIFIED PURPOSE.”
Imagine the IMPACT a church could have if they were unified in purpose. Our mission at Element is to help people experience LIFE to its fullest. We only experience that kind of life when we follow Jesus completely. Our vision is to be a movement of people having such an IMPACT that if we were gone our communities would miss us. We can only have that kind of impact if we assemble together with a unified purpose.
Friends, we ARE on a rescue mission. it’s actually a hundred times more important than the rescue mission that took place in Chile one week ago. It’s a rescue mission for the souls of people headed for a Godless eternity. How much more valuable is it for us then, to be UNIFIED in purpose?
In the rescue,
Jeff