Hope for dying churches... faith...

Remind self: read William Willimon's blog more often. He has a great post on The Practical, Organizational Relevance of Resurrection. I love the story at the end about the dead church, and the quote:

"To tell him a pastor or a church is dead means nothing to him. He just sees death as an opportunity to see what Jesus can do.”

Yep... Need to get me some o' that.

I think this is why we need leadership in the church, and even organizational structure. I believe God is a God of order. That's why he gives people certain spiritual gifts. Sometimes we need someone to remind us what it's all about and why we do what we do and stuff like that. To me that's the value of denominational leaders and pastors and elders and whatever you wanna call your church leaders. That's what I appreciate about Will. Someone to say simple things like:

We serve a God who lives to raise the dead--even us. Therefore, we work with hope--not hope in ourselves and our efforts, but with hope in Christ.

Amen.

ht to Milton Stanley