The point of this particular post appears to be particularly addressed to religious leaders. Fortunately, quite a large number of my readers and listeners are pastors and Christian leaders. So I am happy that these insights on acceptable worship are reaching the right audience.
I was once told of a particular church that wanted to build a cathedral and went to ridiculous measures to achieve their goal. More often that not, what generates all these pressures are a multitude of white elephant projects — it’s always about these cathedrals.
You hear declarations from the pulpit like: “We’re building a cathedral for God”, “We’re trying to reach the world”, “We’re trying to take the Gospel to China”, “We’re trying to take the Word to Vietnam, “We’re taking the Gospel to the hinterland.”
In actual fact, a lot of all these people are more evangelized than those claiming to be taking the gospel to them. A lot of these places we claim we want to take the Gospel to know the gospel more than we do.
You hear a lot of preachers in America tell their congregation that they want to take the Gospel to Nigeria, Africa and so on. Now, isn’t that ridiculous? To tell the truth, Africa is more evangelized than America. Africa is more ‘gospelized’ than Europe. China is more evangelized than America. India is more evangelized than America. The hinterlands are probably more evangelized than the urban areas.
I believe that where we need to take the Gospel to is our families. The new mission frontier is no longer China, Africa or one unknown country in a forgotten part of the world. It is your family. Take the Gospel to your wife. Take the Gospel to your kids. Take the Gospel to your husband. This is very important and at the same time that’s the most difficult place to take the Gospel to.