Recently, I had the privilege of speaking outside of my normal place here at Element Church at a great church in another state. I preached a series of messages during a spiritual emphasis week this church was having and had a great time serving to and serving with the people there.
On one of the nights there was a gentleman who attended that was not a part of that specific local church body. He was a believer from another church who came out for one of the special services and following that nights message he spoke to me in the lobby. He heard I was from Wyoming and shared about his birth place here in Wyoming and how he still had a special place in his heart for our great state. Then he spoke the title of my blog. He said, “I’m worried about the churches in Wyoming.”
This obviously intrigued and interested me since I have a great passion to see God’s Kingdom expand through His local church here in our state. At first I thought I was going to be speaking to a kindred spirit and perhaps share some passion about seeing God’s church impact our state in a substantial way, but I would soon find out I was wrong. His very next statement made me do a double take. He said, “All the churches in Wyoming are only doing Sunday morning now. No one is doing Sunday evening prayer or Wednesday night Bible study anymore.”
I had to look confused as he was explaining his concern. I kindly thanked him for his words and assured him that there were many churches doing great works in Wyoming, but it got me thinking about something he said. He was worried because churches were no longer offering separate Sunday night or Wednesday night services. Here’s what I thought.
It’s not the amount of services you hold for the community but how much you serve the people in the community.
[Tweet “It’s not the amount of services you hold for the community but how much you serve the people in the community.”]
There are plenty of churches that do Sunday morning services, Sunday night prayer and Wednesday night Bible study that have little to no Spirit presence in them. There are just as many churches that do all that but are FILLED with the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead of being worried about how many services you have available to attend in the week, maybe we should be concerned about how well we are able to serve the community we are a part of.
My concern for the church has nothing to do with how many services we have and everything to do with how well we are serving the people God has placed us near. I’d rather have one service filled with God’s presence that leads to passionate Christians serving their community throughout the week than a bunch of services with the same people attending but no impact made in the community. But that’s just me.