Between The Sundays

I was having lunch with a friend the other day when I received an email on my Crackberry from Pastor Steven Furtick. He contacts me regularly for advice…no just kidding. Actually I subscribe to his blog, www.stevenfurtick.com, that is emailed to me 4 days a week. I’m sure that I need his advice more than he needs mine. Anyway, I commented to my friend that I’m so glad that Pastor Steven takes the time and effort to send out these “mini messages” throughout the week. I need them. I went on to say that all pastors should be blogging to some extent to lead their people from Sunday to Sunday. I need encouragement, instruction and correction more than just once a week. In defense of his pastor he replied that he can learn more over a lunch with his pastor than he can from any blog. True enough…but what about everyone else in the church? Are they getting this up close and personal face time with the pastor? Chances are no and if a church is small enough for the pastor to have lunch on a regular basis with most of his members, what does that say about the church? A church is a living organism, the bride of Christ, and is supposed to be growing all the time.

We are pounded with disturbing, dysfunctional and perverted messages, images and sound bites constantly in our media driven world. It’s hard not to “conform to the patterns of this world” (Romans 12:2) or to be “not of the world” (John  17:16) when the “world” is blitzing us with its values. We, as believers, need to keep ourselves armed to defend ourselves against this assault. “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” (Ephesians 6:11) I think many modern churches realize this as they post messages to Podcasts; have videos of sermons online and blogs by pastors to provide daily content for those of us who need it. I know that none of this is a substitute for reading the Word and prayer, but it is nice and valuable to have since it is available to us…and that is the point. It is available and if pastors and churches are not making the most of these opportunities to lead and disciple their members, they are missing the boat. Waiting on Sundays to communicate, teach, encourage and lead their people while we are being blasted by this world between the Sundays is entirely deficient and negligent. The technology and opportunities are available. They need to be optimized.