Nov24 Written by:Keith Wilson
11/24/2008 9:31 AM
A few months ago my father was sharing with me a few stories about his life growing up. My grandfather and grandmother on my dad’s side of the family passed away years before I was born so I was recently inquiring about his home growing up. He was recollecting to me how Grandpa would work hard all day on the farm and with local farmers as a Veterinarian but would come home every day to sit at the table for dinner at 5:30p.m. There, awaiting him would be a table full of food and kids (6 to be exact) where they gathered every night for dinner as a family. As they would begin eating my grandfather would turn to grandma and say, “Well, Mother, how were the children today?” And then the report would begin.
Dad said you always knew if your name was going to come up and you were always terrified when it was. If you were included in the “bad report” you would go stand next to grandpa at the table where he would sit calmly in his chair, grab your ear, start to twist until your feet came of the ground and then give you a “stern” lecture about what you had done while holding you, feet dangling on your tiptoes for support, until he finished his lecture. My father reports that it was an effective means of punishment. He also likes to joke that his brother Bruce had more ear twistings than anybody else in family history.
Recently I’ve felt that God may be “twisting my ear” a bit about the church’s role in the community. I’ve begin to wonder several things about Center Pointe Christian Church. Reading through the New Testament we see various examples of what God’s will was for the church. Jesus said…”I have come to seek and save that which was lost” and “Whatever you have done to the least of these my brothers you have done to me” and “Go, make disciples of all nations.” The NT is also riddled with examples of the church helping the homeless, downtrodden, disabled, struggling and depressed. The early church developed such an identity within their communities that it “found favor with all the people and added to its number daily those who were being saved.”
Knowing these things I have begun to ask myself…
Is Center Pointe Christian Church a vital part of our community?
What are we doing daily to meet the needs of our community?
And, most importantly…
If our church ceased to exist today would our community notice?
As a result of God’s ear twisting so to speak, we have formed an Outreach Leadership Team that has already begun to meet. This team is made up of 7 CPCC partners who are meeting every other week with me to research, brainstorm, pray and strategize what CPCC can do in the coming years to make this community a better place to live. We’ve begun reading a book called “The Externally Focused Church” which is already changing our paradigm of church and thoughts on local outreach.
One of us will be blogging every other week as we meet to discuss our thoughts and ideas generated from this book. I’d like to ask two things of you over the next 3 months;
1. Please visit this blog every other week to stay in touch with what we are thinking and dreaming about. You will find here until the beginning of February a note every 2 weeks about our direction and strategy for outreach as we continue to research.
2. Pray for our team and church leadership as we begin to chart the course for CPCC and the SHARE piece of our wheel
This week I’d simply ask you to pray specifically for our own open hearts and minds to God’s will and not our own. Thank you and we’ll see you again back here next week!
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