In Kingdom Proportion

Fellow Labourers-

Note this paragraph lifted directly from the article attached- "I recently read an account of a pastor in Bellevue, Washington who reminded me of one such thing. Wanting his congregation both to represent and to identify itself with its missional calling, he called them to see life in its broadest context. He asked them "to recognize...that their missional calling involves the witness of their quality of life together as much as it involves service to real human needs and verbal witness to Jesus Christ."(2) I am so accustomed to the phrase "quality of life" referring to ethics and medicine that the idea actually took a minute to comprehend. But once it did, I realized how short-sided I had allowed that phrase to become."

This strikes at the very heart of what I am trying to achieve. Church has become so loaded with activities most of which is planned at arousing emotions and cater to the baser side of our humanity. We seek to please and appease the desires of those whom we fail to teach the real meaning of why we are saved.

Each time I recall the story of the woman with the issue of blood and the child who died at age twelve I am forced to think of the relationship between the two. The two incidents run right into each other and are therefore not coincidental. The woman with the issue of blood had her problem for twelve long years, but the child lived for only twelve years. What's the difference? It's about quality of life and quantity of life.

The paradigm within the Pentecostal church must shift from "happy hour" to meeting real needs. We can't sit around attempting to parallel the world in almost everything it does and then expect to have a better world. We must challenge the popular culture and raise the level of our thinking. We need some Jeremiahs, some Daniels, some Stephens, some Timothys and some Pauls. Let us stop making excuses and begin to identify our Church with its missional calling. We have a mission to go into all the world, not to sit in our pews and stand our soap boxes.

Pax Vobiscum,

Pastor Robert A. Stewart