Sacrifice
As I begin to become more involved with conVerge Church I am, hopefully, beginning to fully understand the sacrifices that need to be made as we live our lives based solely around the Mission of Christ. When I say this please understand that this does not mean we cannot have fun as followers of Christ, we still need to enjoy the life that God has given us, we do however need to manage our time more efficiently. For me this means I need to cut back on video games and watching TV, for you it may mean any number of different things.
I am beginning to understand that although I thoroughly enjoy these things I can’t spend all my “free time” doing them. I could be spending more time developing relationships with more people or deepening the relationships I already have (both fun things). I could be learning more about my relationship with Christ by listening to pod-casts or reading more books (both things that are enjoyable). But the sacrifices that I need to make are things that have no impact on The Mission. These things are in all of our lives: video games, TV, browsing the Internet, ___. You can fill in that final blank with whatever it is in your life that you spend time doing that in no way fulfills the Mission.
Please understand again that I am not saying you can’t have fun or that these things have absolutely no place in our lives, but I believe these things so easily become “idols” in our lives and I would also say we are wasting our time doing them when we could be spending more time dedicated to the Mission.
We all need to take a step back and look at what we spend most of our “free time” doing and take a moment to think how this affects the Mission. Is what I am doing becoming an idol? Is what I am doing glorifying to God? Is there something different I would enjoy doing that would impact the Mission? These are questions we need to be asking ourselves and there is a good chance that we need to make some sacrifices in our lives. Also keep in mind what Caleb Turner said in Missional Communities last week (and I will paraphrase it a bit) If we are developing our relationship with Christ than we will enjoy doing things in our lives that are Missional.
Good stuff Bryan. It is essential that we are positively looking for things we ought to be doing with the mission, and not just getting fed up with the nothingness that comes from video games, tv, etc. If we don’t seek the Kingdom, then all we’re left with after giving up the bad, is nothing. We must then use that spare time to do the good. I had the misconception that all I needed to do was move away from bad habits, thinking that I myself was good enough that if given free time, I would naturally use it for the good. For myself, this was/is not true. There are two moves involved, moving away from the bad, and moving into the good. The first move we can do on our own, but the second move, the one to do kingdom building, we can only do in the context and encouragement of the church, and only with God’s grace. I’m glad to be building the Church with you.