Complacent and Impotent

When you read the Book of Acts you see the church as a small group of people making a huge impact on their culture. Its a movement. The church in America, specifically in DFW, seems to be a huge group of people not really doing much. It seems impotent. Powerless.

If you were to ask people who attend church they probably couldn't see the difference. But when you look deeper you see complacency and comfort. Churches are very neat and pretty. Its kind of a social club. Jesus is part of the pie - an equal slice with family, work, and play.

What if Jesus was central? What if the way we did family, the way we did work, the way we played, centered around the Gospel and a bloody cross and empty tomb?

Fort Worth is growing like crazy. New developments are going up, droves of people, young and old, are moving from the suburbs back into the city. What kind of culture are they going to fall prey to? Comfort, affluence, and cool, urban life? Or, perhaps, through the transforming power of the Gospel, Christ would be worshipped AS THE WHOLE PIE, the hungry would be fed, the abused cared for, and lives would be changed.

How DFW got the Buckle on the Bible Belt

Check out this post from Bob Roberts Jr.

People sometimes make fun of Dallas-Fort Worth being the buckle on the Bible belt. It isn't anymore. It's unbuckled. The stats are in and church attendance is around the 17% mark - in northeast Tarrant county where I live it's probably more like 9%. We think because we see churches and some of them big that we are churched. We are not. A lot of the shelves (pews) are empty in those stores! The ones that are full are often filled with people looking for a different kind of church - not Jesus! If we were "churched" anywhere near what we were just 35 years ago at a minimum we would have to double the number of churches out here.

For some pastors that would freak them out - more competition! We need to shift our mindset from one that says "I pastor a church to reach this community . . . " to one. that says "I pastor a church to create communities of faith in this community all over." One thinks like a preacher/pastor the other a missionary/mobilizer.

We were the most wicked place on the face of the earth just a little over a hundred years ago. Downtown Fort Worth was called Hell's half acre. Gun fights, brothels, gambling, you name it - it was there and out of control. Most people didn't venture there. It was the last jumping off point till you started out west to nowhere. Godly? Not hardly.

Then, a group of Christians and pastors had enough. They became convicted and started starting churches right in the heart of Hell's half-acre - a revival began to come - Southwestern seminary came on the scene - and the rest is history. We became the Bible belt not because of our holiness, but because of our sinfulness and a sense of desperation a few people had a century ago.

It's time for us to once again have a burden for our city. There's not a greater place to live than DFW. There's not a more strategic city to live than DFW in the US, and for some reason the world.

When the passion for Jesus is gone and you have the relics of religion left over - buildings/structures/organizations - then it looses its power and becomes counter productive.

Father I pray for my city. I love my city. You love my city more. Guide my city. Pour your Spirit out over my city. Help us to love your city and serve your city like you want. I lift up all the mayors, the pastors, the businessmen, the teachers, the medical personell, the artists, government leaders, the institutions, but more than all of those domains - I lift up the people to you. May they see Jesus in our lives as we serve them in the name of Jesus and share the Good news not as a sermon, but as a transforming story that is alive, ongoing, and inclusive.

http://www.glocal.net/blog/comments/how-dfw-got-the-buckle-on-the-bible-belt/

What If?

What if there was a church that was for their city and not against it?

What if they served a God who was worthy of glory, worship, and praise and not just some neblous sky fairy who grants us three wishes if we do good?

What if there was a church who was so raw, so dirty, so honest that deep, dark stuff could finally be dug up and dealt with?

What if the men would be men and reflect the character of God and speak into that darkness and bring the light of the Gospel?

What if there was a church that wasn't a dispenser of religious goods and services but a place where iron violently sharpens iron and real community and relationships took place?

What if there was a church where women could be honest about their struggles without the judgment and criticism of other women, and where men could actually be men and rather being passive, impotent, and fearful of failure or brash, immature, insecure, sex freaks, they could lead, cultivate, build, redeem, and create?

Where depth is more important then width?

Where love isn't flowery, fake, and surface level, but gritty, real, and deep?

Where biblical spirituality is actually flows to our hearts, hands, and feet and is not just in our head?

Where money is used to love people instead of using people to get money?

Where the Bible is taught, read, and used to reveal the immutable, unmatching, marvelous light of the glory of God and not weird, self-help, road map to life?

Where the revitalization and growth of Fort Worth is greatly influenced by the Gospel of Jesus for the transformation of lives to the glory of God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit?

What if?