Be the church

Greetings:
More and more God is impressing on me that we as Christian need to do more to impact our communities.
We can no longer be content with 'just going to church'.
Spending time in prayer, worship and praise is key to satisfy our own spiritual needs and yearnings.
We need to reach out into our community, identify the needs and then become the feet and hands who will see that the 'human' needs of those who live in our neighborhood are met.
We're talking about providing food, clothing, medical supplies and mechanical needs. We need to mentor, encourage those in need and struggling and teach job-seeking skills, business skills, mechanical skills and 'fix it up' skills.
We need to be ready to provide teachings in general life skills such as cooking, shopping, and New Testament in the Bible and see that the Corinthians believers wanted to be loved but did not want to put out the effort of being loving and caring to others. To put it mildly, they were not a warm a friendly church. Instead they were proud and selfish.
What makes us different? What makes us attractive when there are so many other organizations or groups to meet with? Why should I become a Christian and attend a bible-believing church when I can stay home and worship with some other church on TV?
We live in a world that is obsessed with being extra-ordinary.
Some buy only award-winning ice cream, the highest-rated brands of electronic goods  and name brand stuff.
Successful authors write 'best sellers' and chefs only use 'extra, extra' virgin olive oil from Italy.
But spiritually speaking, we seldom reflect how extra-ordinary Christians truly are.
The word 'church' is actually a old German word (kirch) for the Latin term of the Greek word 'called out.'
We as a church are called out to be the compassionate people who reach out to touch the poor, the hunger, the dejected, the shunned, the criminal, the hurting, the searching individuals – young and old – in our communities and shower them with the love, hope and salvation offered by Jesus Christ. But before we touch their souls we must first minister to physical bodies and their minds.
A shift back to the biblical definition of church is is needed.
Do we want to continue to be just a consumer church that merely dispenses some religious words and sings a few hymns or songs of praise and then go home – thinking our duties have been satisfied for another week?
A church of action is a church that has burden to be a missional church that is seen as a body of people sent on a mission who gather in community for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word that supplements what they are feeding themselves throughout the week.
Members say, "I am the church"
People can't help but feed deeply on the Scriptures on their own to keep their hearts soft and their minds sharp and ready to give an answer of hope they have to those they interact with.
The missional church people see themselves as ambassadors of Jesus and are motivated to live holy, kingdom-minded lives so that they do not dishonor the name of the King they represent.
We once attended a church in western Kentucky called “Household of  Faith” that was founded on the principal laid forth in Galatians 6:10 (New Living Bible), which states, “Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.”
God help us to see the opportunities in our towns, cities and our county. Help us to do good when we have the opportunity to do so.
We pray that we will see our church body as a family, as a community on a mission together.
What is needed a change of spiritual attitude among many believers, who are good people but lack the vision to see the need that is living all around them. Too many times we are blind and don't see that which is staring us in the face.
We all have a mission to do. Please don't become content like the Church of Corinth was before the Apostle Paul spoke boldly and truthfully to them. They were encouraged to step out, reach out and display real brotherly love.
We would do well to reach both books of Corinthians and then get on our knees and pray for God's guidance and discover what our purpose and our mission is to make a difference in the communities where we live.
Be blessed.

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