It didn’t happen on purpose. It was never our intention. Our transformation almost seemed as easy as going to sleep and waking the next day. One night we are mission minded the next we wake up comfort minded. One night our heart is for the lost and next for ourselves. Like looking out the window and looking back into mirror we changed from a people who cared about the world to a people who cared about ourselves. This is the plague of the established church. Most churches start in a dream to change the world, but as churches contain self centered people (myself included), if we are not deliberate and purposeful in all decisions, we find ourselves naturally making comfort based decisions not kingdom centered decisions. Recently I have had the privilege of being a part of a renewal in our local Baptist association. As churches we sat together and put our budget, our priorities, and our activities under a microscope. In unity we came away knowing that we wanted more… we wanted to go back to the very reason for our existence: to work together as churches to accomplish greater things in association with each other than we could alone. Out of a year long process we decided that our greatest goal would be to accomplish one thing: to plant a church.
It is my hope that at Western Heights we might do the same. It has been my prayer lately that our church might recapture a vision greater than itself. It is my hope that we can humbly look at who we are and see what great things God can do through us.
