A PROGRAM SHIFT from EVENTS to RELATIONSHIPS.

2 of 7 Strategic Shifts for the 21st Century Church of Jesus Christ)
In my personal observation and experience –Today’s church is losing its warmth, joy, sincerity and friendliness. We have become Sunday morning acquaintances! Moreover the banner over many-a-gathering is ‘ICHABOD’. The Glory of Holy Spirit has departed in grief. Instead of being people-sensitive, we tend to be more events driven.

Most of us leaders just hold meaningless exercises without praying about them; don’t even spread it out to a team endeavour nor even take time to assess or evaluate its impact on the church group or the community at large. Then . . . most of us church-folk today just attend the gatherings and wait for the ‘home-time siren’ to silently sound to hop, skip and jump into our cars or church-bus and quickly vacate the church-yard. Hello! We are ALIVE! We are a living organism! ‘THE BODY OF CHRIST’.

We are called to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.
An INTERDEPENDENCE on each other. Yes! We NEED purposeful programming as a MEANS to MEET a more important end. We require TEAM-BUILDING and CHURCH CONSTRUCTION to REACH-OUT to our COMMUNITIES.
To be more precise and Biblically-correct we need ‘A HOLY COMMUNION’ between each other like recorded in the book of Acts 2: 38-47:

‘Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. 3And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 5And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

Dear friend; we need to SHIFT and operate from a position of COMPASSION and LOVE. We should ask ourselves: How many people have I had a meaningful conversation with at my church? Have I met every member in my church group? Can I meet somebody at their point of need? When last did I invite another church family for friendship and fellowship around a meal? Am I fitting in my ‘family-of-God’? Isn’t that what church is all about? Can we not PRAY and PLAY together & have FUN in the SON? Come let’s focus on building bridges between each other after all ‘PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD’. AJS.