The Meeting

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most companies have a weekly meeting. During these meetings, many things are discussed - past, present and future - and many decisions are made that impact both the company and the individuals that make up that company.

These meetings are very important, but no one in their right mind would say that the most important part of the business for IBM, or Microsoft, or McDonald’s was their weekly meetings. That’s ridiculous.

We all know that the most important part of the business for these and all businesses is the development and stewardship of a unique, impacting relationship with their customers.

And yet.......

The Church at large in the Western World today lives as though the weekly meeting is the center of what we do and who we are. The weekly meeting remains the focal point of many of our Western churches today, be they institutional, house church or para-church in nature.

One of the most important, life-changing revelations to the existing Church and new believers alike is the understanding that the most important part of being the Church is daily living out the development and stewardship of unique, impacting relationships with first, the lost, and then other believers. The weekly meetings are important, but they are not meant to be the centerpiece that many of us have made them out to be.

There are many of God’s children who are “missing.” Some are “unsaved,” some are “saved” and wandering, and some are “saved” and wondering. But none of them are truly searching high and low for a really good weekly meeting. None of them think that, if they could just find a really good weekly meeting, the mysterious longing within them for closeness with God would disappear.

They may not know what they’re looking for, but it’s not a meeting. What God’s missing children need is a unique, impacting daily relationship with God and His people. Then and only then will the weekly meeting begin to serve its proper, God-intended purpose in their, and our lives.

Tonight, my family and I will have dinner and spend the evening with a family whom we have recently met. We did not meet them "at church." We met them where Jesus met people - as He lived out His faith in His life. On hillsides, on beaches, on roadsides, in marketplaces, in sinner's homes, Jesus simply lived out His life of faith, and God drew men unto Himself through that simple, transparent, faithful life of Christ.

Tonight, my family and I will have dinner and spend the evening with a family whom we have recently met. We love them. They are special to us. When tonight is done, we will have broken bread, fellowshipped, prayed and received teaching. When tonight is done, we will have invested precious time and will have even then begun to reap precious returns on the development and stewardship of a unique, impacting relationship between our families and our God.

And soon, our two families will come together in a weekly meeting with other families with whom we also are developing and stewarding unique, impacting relationships.

God, Christ, Christianity, evangelism, faith and life are not necessarily as we have been told. They are as God’s Word describes them, and are a stunningly beautiful thing to experience.

Weekly meetings have an importance, but the only place we will experience a life of wholeness is in a daily, growing relationship with God, the lost, and God's children.

“Some of My children are missing. Go and find them. I will lead you.”

More to come......