I met with one of our small groups leaders last Wednesday. He was talking about when he first came to church, he would hear statements like “na-one2one ka na ba?” or “na-Victory Weekend ka na ba?” And when he would get these questions, he felt something cringe inside of him. In fact, he would feel “does-this-mean-i’m-less-of-a-Christian” feeling.
I told him that sometimes, in our zeal, we throw around these words and statements either as a joke or as an encouragement not understanding how it might come across which is exactly what happened to him.
Don’t get me wrong, our tools have been so powerful that we’ve seen so many lives changed. In fact, in a few minutes, I will be going down from my office to the Youth Hall because we’ll be having our Victory Weekend. But tools are exactly what they are – TOOLS. But what drives those tools to bring about lifechange is the POWER OF GOD, which is available to us daily. Actually, it has been available since way before.
We didn’t have one2one, Victory Weekend, Training for Victory, Making Disciples Training 15 years ago and yet we’ve seen lives changed, marriage restored and families healed. We need to watch out that we don’t replace the POWER OF GOD with PROGRAMS. Programs are good but without the power, they are just ‘good stuff’ devoid of capability to bring transformation. Then we’re back to religion.
Genuinely love people. Sit, chat, talk, spend time not so we can get them through the discipleship process. Sit, chat, talk and spend time because Jesus loves them, therefore we love them as well.
“When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.” (Matthew 9:35, Message Version)
