Gaze

I just listened again to David Schall's final challenge at World Conference.You can find it here if you'd like to listen to it. He speaks about the direction our congregation's gaze is turned. "If you love me" he quotes Jesus, your gaze needs to be turned outward and not inward.

If you've followed this blog much, you've read about the Healthy Congregation. You've had attention drawn to balancing the various kinds of ministries our congregations offer. We've talked of the three main kinds of ministries: witnessing/inviting, gathering, and sending/serving. Typical congregations focus most effort and energy on their gathering ministry.

Healthy congregations do have gathering ministry. We do need to worship together, to experience fellowship with other parts of our church family, to learn how to be more effective disciples. We do those things when we gather together, when our gaze is rightfully turned inward.

But the other two-thirds of what we do should shift to an outward gaze. This is what it means to be a missional congregation. President Schall suggests three ways to do that.
(1) In all you do, ask the question "How will this (event/activity/
purchase/decision) bless the community?" (2) Consider who you need to invite to church and (3) Pay your tithing.

This is a very brief summary of a very important message. You may expect to hear it again and again. For now, let's think about where we choose to fix our gaze.

Posted by Marion