Mark LaGrone

Interesting Commentary

Sunday morning as I was eating breakfast I surfed thru the channels and a story on the local news caught my eye.  There were some protestors standing in the rain demonstrating against the tearing down of a church. I thought this must be important to them for them to stand in the rain all day with signs.

 

It seems this church was designed and built by the same person who designed and built the “Pink Palace”.  Fair enough; it has a famous history.  Their heart cry was how much this church meant to the community and they wanted it to stay versus becoming another pharmacy.  Their only reason for saving the church was it’s history.  It was not that the church was a beacon for Truth, meeting needs and healing hurts. It was because of who built the building.

 

I was saddened due to the fact that here was another church that had gradually lost its influence – these things rarely happen over night.  I wondered: was it over budgets, programming and people, was it over a music style, was it people becoming more focused on the inside of the building rather than who was on the outside? It left me wondering where a lot of churches are in their “life cycle”.  I want to be in a church where the community would protest the church leaving due to the positive influence instead of just another pretty building.

 

Bang for your Buck

As I was flipping through the channels the other day I came across a show entitled “Bang For Your Buck”.  The show was based on three couples spending more on a single renovation than I make in two years to have the renovation evaluated by a designer and a real-estate  person.  At the end of the show the winner is the one who came the closest to getting the most value for the money.

 

I had the privilege of taking some students to a theme park this summer.  As I was walking thru the park I noticed a group of people performing.  I stopped to watch and enjoy the show.  This was a group of 25 students from a church who were singing and doing a drama skit along with it.  They were very talented and you could tell they had put a lot of time into practicing.  However, no one outside of the group watched the performance.  As a matter of fact there were people walking in front of them oblivious to the fact that these young people singing.  At the end parents applauded and everyone dispersed to have a great time at the park.

 

This got me thinking about how we do things in the church.  As I mentioned earlier you could tell these students had put in a lot of time, but did they really get a lot of “Bang for their buck”?   I thought about the hours of practice, travel time, and expense with the hopes of sharing the gospel.  What standards could we have used to evaluate their work.  I thought about my own church and  the ministries I am responsible for.  Am I making the best choices?  Do I need to re-evaluate how effective I am? The real answer? I have my work cut out for me.  How about you as a Sunday School teacher? Are lives being changed? Are marriages and families being strengthened?

 

Let’s commit together to make sure we are getting the most “Bang for our buck” and not just to do things the easy way or just because we have always done them that way.

 

Recommitting

I attended the wedding of a young man that is on my Educational Team this past Saturday.  I never attend a wedding that somehow I do not go thru the ceremony and use that time to reflect on my marriage and recommit my vows to Janice.  We have a great marriage and enjoy spending time with each other, but sometimes with all of the busyness of life it is nice to stop, reflect, and recommit. 

This also got me to thinking about why Jesus had us to remember the ordinance of the "Lord's Supper".  Having these times built into our church life is crucial to help us in our busy lives.  Stopping to reflect and recommit is vital in our spiritual journey as well as our earthly relationships.

I am hoping that God gives you some spiritual pauses in your life for you to recommit to Him and to those around you.

Have you ever been there?

One day last week I was getting ready to head to work and was in a really bad mood. As our church gets closer to moving into our new building there are so many details to be worked out and, of course, I need to keep doing all the other parts of my job, etc…. You get the idea. Over a period of time I had become stressed to say the least. I was going to be in a few meetings that day where I was afraid I would not respond the way I should.

I stopped, went back up stairs and opened my Bible. I started reading in Proverbs chapter 4 and the Lord brought me to the 23rd verse “guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” As I thought about these verses I realized that there were so many things that I was trying to do on my own. One by one I voiced to God the things that were making me miserable. I said “ God I lay this at your feet. It is all about you and not about me.”

If we are not careful we can allow Satan to get a foothold in our lives. When we begin to think about how we are not being treated fairly, how not everyone is helping like they should, how I can make this happen, or will I ever make just one person happy; we know we are heading into troubled waters. It does not take but one comment to destroy a relationship. Guarding our hearts is a full time job – at least for me. Many times my bad moods are an indicator of something I need to take care of.

Have you ever been there?