Get off the couch

In the last blog I tried to establish the fact that just going to church does not make you a Christian and that if you are a Christian you should want to go to church. But what about the Christian that does go to church what then? Is it about showing up just minutes before or perhaps even late? Is it about sprinting to the car as soon as you think it’s over? Is it about coming on a Sunday morning and seeing what you can get? No no no no no! I have heard people say “I did not get anything out of church.” My question would be what did you put into it? I have also heard some say “I’ve done that now it’s someone else’s turn.” That’s not church. If a person comes to church expecting to be served sooner or later they will be disappointed. But if they come to church wanting to serve it will not take long at all to be rewarded. Now there is a difference between serving and wanting to serve. If you just write your name down on a signup sheet because you feel obligated there is no reward in that. However when you serve willingly as Jesus did it won’t take very long at all to see the benefits of serving.  I have been a part of a small without a building church for some time now and it takes a lot to “do church”. Church is like a family and it takes everyone pulling together for a common cause to make it what it needs to be. Don’t be that family member that just sits on the couch and is oblivious to what’s going on around them. Get involved, go to church to serve, not to be served, a church with more consumers than producers quickly dies. Look around your church and see what can be done. Not everyone can fill the communion cups, but there are many other things to do. My always told me when it comes to work that he shouldn’t have to tell me what to do that I should be able to see what needs to be done. The same thing can be said for church, don’t wait to be told what needs to be done, learn to see what needs to be done.  There is so much to do in a church besides the obvious like teaching, nursery, and the like. It could simply be attending the things that don’t happen on Sunday, encouraging others, providing food for someone going through a rough patch; the list could go on and on. One last important thing don’t do these things for yourself, or for the church. If you want the things you do to have value do them for Jesus. In other words get off the couch and get into Jesus.