I am reflecting on yesterday and what God is doing in my life right now. We finished up the One Prayer series yesterday with Pastor Craig Groeschel's message "Make Us One". It really got me thinking about how I relate, or fail to relate, to other churches and other pastors. I realized that may harbor some feelings of competition towards other churches that is hampering my ability to do God's ministry in partnership with them. I think we sometimes get locked into thinking that church is a "zero-sum" game. In other words, there are only so many people that are going to go to church and we better get our slice of that pie. The reality is that we are forgetting that two-thirds of that pie is not involved in the local church. Maybe if I stop trying to compete and instead look to the fields...they are very ripe and ready to be harvested. I am committing myself today to make another effort to build relationships with other pastors here in Kirksville.
There has been a lot of discussion around the topic of worship lately at TRCC. In my prayers this morning I realized that the real spirit of worship is that I should strive everyday to worship God just a little deeper than I did yesterday. When we gather on Sunday we should all strive to be a little more open and engage a little deeper with the Holy Spirit than we did the previous Sunday. That is the mark of spiritual growth. A constant moving forward and deepening relationship with God.
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