The Search for God’s Will for His Church

     During the time that I agreed to lead our Wednesday night youth and the day I surrendered to the ministry, I was attempting to mimic other youth pastors and their method of ministry.  I really had no budget to work with and not much money of my own to invest.  What I did have I spent on trying to make our Wednesday night youth appealing to our local students.  Honestly, that was an epic failure.    God had called me into His ministry not the ministry of someone else.  My failure was, I was trying to fulfill and mimic what others were already doing.  I was not seeking what God wanted to be done. 

     It is funny how we have it in our heads that God needs all the fancy gadgets and latest technology to reach the lost.  The irony was in what I did have.  The digital projector was broken, I had no laptop, and the youth building was and still is the old church with no pews.  We did have an old pool table, a ping pong table and one basketball goal.  The floors were and still are bare.  The walls are just a plain white with grungy smudges everywhere.  Most youth would walk in and think “really, are you for real!” and walk out.  No fancy lights, no fancy décor, no band, and no cool place to just hang out. What we had was the blah boring bare minimum, a scratchy sound system, and an old school plastic sheet projector. 

     Reality set in after several weeks of leading the youth.  God wants something different than what I was attempting to create.  If He really wanted what I was trying to do He would have provided for those needs.  So what was it that God had planned?

     The first night I led youth, there was 9 students.   Several weeks later there was 12-15.  Obviously something was wrong.  It’s not about the numbers and how many kids you can draw in and entertain.  It is about making an impact in the life of a student for Christ.  If you have a hundred or even a thousand and not one life is reached for Christ, then it is all in vain.  If you only have one and that one life is changed for Christ, then it is all worth every effort you have made.  What I did know is that we had more than one in our community that needed to meet the Lord.  I also realized that what I was doing was really wasn’t what The Lord wanted.  The kids I was ministering to were the kids of parents who had been attending our church for years.  They all grew up in the church and they were expected to be a part of the church.  Not that this was a bad thing, because it was not.  The problem was our youth ministry was bound by the walls and membership of our church.  God never intended it to be that way. 

     I began to pray faithfully, “Lord, what is it that our youth need? How do you want me to lead and minister?”  As I became more faithful in praying and more in tune to listening to God’s voice instead of making sure God heard my voice, I began to hear what He desired.  I began to realize that what God wanted was not entertainment it was church.  I began to see what God’s church looked like.  It had no walls or fancy comfortable interiors.  God’s church was the people.  With that in mind, I began to focus on what we did have and not what I thought we should have.  I no longer sought after the images of other youth groups; I sought after the images of Christ’s church and its purpose.

     God began to put things on my heart and my mind of what He wanted.  It seemed like every time I asked He would respond “Church!”  As I would read His word and pray, I began to realize what Church was suppose to look like and what its purposes were. 

     When we make church what we want it to be and not what God has called it to be it may look attractive and nice on the outside, but in the inside, it is dead.  Tomorrow I will share what God showed me, and how He confirmed the purposes of His church. 

This is the inside of a church in Romania.
On the outside there were rejected, hungry,
sick Roma people (gypsies)  everywhere. 

This is the outside of one of the nicer Churches in Nicaragua,
On the inside I have experienced some of the most spiritually
intense worship services ever.  We also use these churches
to care for and treat the illness and infections of their people

Matthew 23:27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.

May my life be the proof and evidence of His love!