"Hi, can I give you something to read please?"

Here I go with another flip side observation.  “Oh you are just picking all the things that used to believe in and do and preaching against them now?” Well, thats not really the case but if you want to believe that what do I care. Sorry!  

I can’t help it.  It’s just my makeup I guess.  It is my knack to teach doctrine through disproving traditions and many human elements that have slipped in under the radar into our ways of service and worship.

Now, lets all get together and go pass out some tracts.  Have you ever heard or participated in such events with your church? There is a danger with such things as gospel tracts, tract blitzes and track bombings.  

I’m not opposed to tracts, but there is the danger of people handing out a million papers to a million people and never opening their mouth to actually witness.  I have seen tracts evolve from a form of opening conversation to more of a “just read this and God bless” and many go on there merry way with their conscience appease that they did something for God. It’s all very Catholic of us isn’t it.  The same as a confessional crutch.  I know people who feel miserable about themselves unless they fulfill some daily or weekly quota. 

In large groups, public outreach operations, especially amongst youth groups there is  this tendency to “one-up” the other that leads more to one becoming a nuisance more than a testimony.  I have seen this hundreds of times in several different places.  Gospel tracts used in such manners turn in to gospel trash.   

The Purpose of the Church

Before I talk about this one, let me say that I feel uncomfortable doing so. Maybe I am just going through some weird transitional phase in all of my doctrinal thinking and processing.  But the whole point of  "silent platform" is to have a place to talk about such things.   

What is the purpose of the church?  Well, I have been told emphatically numerous times the answer to this; I just have yet to find the scriptural support to back it up as emphatically as others.  Maybe it is my error.  Maybe I am in the wrong here on this topic.  

"The purpose of the church is to win souls".  "The purpose of the church it to win the lost to Christ".  This all sounds good! This all sounds right doesn't it.  What Christian would hear this statement in a public setting and disagree?  Maybe 1 out of 100, maybe more, maybe less?  Look, I don't disagree with leading a man to the Lord Jesus Christ in the least, but is it the sole purpose of the body of Christ?

I used to think this way. But is this really our purpose?  The church, the body of Christ, the assembly of brethren, what is the purpose for existence?  In the Pauline Epistles, it is much more about building a working body then saving the world.  I know how that sounds to most Christians, and I know how hard it is for some of you to hear that but this is extremely important to understand.  

I am to the point of seeing this so strongly now I don’t understand how people can not see as much as they claim to read.  Its about giving him Glory.  So do we witness to the lost?  Of course.  It is a role we can all play in adding to the body of Christ, but it is not our sole reason for being.  

The body IS comprised of all people who were all at one point lost.  I say that to say again, of course I believe in winning the lost!  What Christian doesn’t want to see others have what they found in Christ?  It should be natural.  You truly don’t understand it until you are in HIM.  

Free will, Seed Planting and Fruit Bearing

I Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. ~ No on is predestinated.  One has to choose.  Free will has always been the kicker.  Men choose NOT to believe in God of their own free will.  You know why multitudes of grown men and women aren’t coming to Christ like they were in the Reformation and Great Awakenings?  They don’t want Him!  That was then, and this is now. 

You know why they are not coming to God on the street corners, in bus ministries, huge evangelistic meetings, Gospel Blitzes, at the football games, gay pride parades?  They don’t want Him! They want lucre.  They want sin.  They want pleasure.  They want gratification.  They want drunkenness.  They want drug binges.  They want carnal desires

The religious don’t want him either.  They want buildings and temples.  They want salaries.  They want their own lives.  They want education. They want man made ministries.   They want systems.  They want status.  They want position.  They want religion.  They want a form of godliness.  But they don’t want Him!  I heard a wise man say once, Men are seeking fulfillment at every source but the direct source.

Our Lord said, Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7:14 Many times in our ways of doing the public ministry all we really do, if truth were told, is find a sinner who is at his wits in, tired of drugs alcohol, and the affairs of this life. All these names and phrase we have for things we do! I.e. soul winning, gospel blitzes, passing out tracts, street preaching, door to door visitation.  We are all reforming!

God didn’t draw them, nor did they seek him, they repented after worldly sorrow.  Maybe they wanted to simply change their ways.  Maybe they had a horrible day at work and took it as a sign! Maybe they wanted a change of luck.  I have witnessed some that just wanted the preacher to shut up and leave!

Good Works and Working for God

I selected this image with careful consideration to deal with something head on in our ranks which is elitism and  hypocrisy in our leaders (and I know you hard-core, militant uncompromising preachers will get ruffled seeing a bare breast, or a nipple slip, at least you will have something to preach about Sunday!) There  is a  predominantly fixed mindset and problem which we will get to, that has run through the local churches  like a rash over the last 2o years.  You protest so much and take such offense, and yet when someone tells you that you and your cronies have been sucking off the same protestant, Fundamentalist teat for decades, it just doesn't register.

It's like a preacher I knew took his shoe off one Sunday moring and chunked it across the room on the wall where it left a scuff.  No one knew what to do!  Did he loose his mind? He was making a point and said, "Now some of you care more about the fact that I scoffed the wall, which I meant to do, then the fact that..." and then he proceeded in his point.  A great illustration!  

This woman in the image is doing a great work for God! Much like Tabitha in Acts 9. Tabitha was full of good works, alms deeds, She used her talents and gifts while SHE was with them.  She made coats and garments, while she was with them.  She used her members.  The body of Christ was established on this in Acts.  Simply gifts and talents being used to minister to others.  She didn't stand out.  Most likely poor to boot. Simply doing what she could.  This is a work of God.  That was a ministry.  That was her calling so to speak.  

We are Christians not because we say we are or go to this church or that church.  People in the NT were called Christians because they shone forth fruits of righteousness associated with Christ. He desires us to have his fruits of righteousness, as in the holy spirit actually bearing those fruit in us, so that we can have fruit unto God and unto perfection.