Understanding the Times

In a recent post on his blog, Ed Stetzer wrote:


In the movie, Lonesome Dove, Danny Glover portrays Joshua Deets, a cattle-drive scout whose job is to ride ahead of the drive and survey the terrain. Largely responsible for the success and safety of the drive, Deets would inform the team of any obstacles, dangers, enemies, or resources that lay ahead. By assessing the upcoming path, he could help the trail boss make an informed decision about how to navigate the way to the trail drive's destination.

Deets' role is reminiscent of the tribe of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 -- men who "understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take" (NLT).

The church (all the Christians around the world -- not just us) is notorious for losing touch with the times and losing our way in a maze of choices. How do we keep from becoming irrelevant?

One thing we must do is remember our mission! We can't forget why we are here. God never placed us on this earth to just hold down the fortress. In fact, this fortress mentality is what has caused most of our local churches to sink to new levels of obscurity. Jesus called us to charge the Enemy with the power of God, using His weapons for this spiritual battle against darkness.

I can tell you of 17,800 reasons we Christ-Followers must be aware of the Mission Christ has given us -- and be certain we are out pursuing Christ on that mission. 17,800 is the number of new people who will be moving into our Harnett County neighborhoods in just the next 5 years. Do you realize that if we tried to fit all those new people into our existing churches next Sunday our buildings would not hold them? And that's assuming they would even want to join with us in our existing churches.

We need dozens of new churches starting now! We need them to be in the areas where the new homes are being built. They don't all need to be alike -- we need contemporary, traditional, in-betweens -- we need churches that reach young adults and ones that focus on the 55+ crowd.

Next Sunday, Crossroads becomes one of thousands of churches in the US that is doing a multi-sitapproach to ministry. We are one church -- with more than one location where we worship. More about the implications of that in the next few days