I hadn’t been a pastor very long when I invited a more experienced minister to visit the church I was serving to lead us in a series of renewal services. After one of those services, I talked “shop” with Mike about some of the realities and responsibilities of pastoral ministry. One of the challenges we discussed is the weekly discipline of crafting a sermon to present in worship. At age 26, my sermon stockpile was very thin. I think I could’ve kept every sermon I’d done in one file folder. I wondered how much preaching capital Mike had accumulated, so I asked, “Mike, how many messages are in your files?” His answer surprised me, “One.” He went on to explain, “I have a bunch of sermons (which he confessed were usually tossed into a box instead of being filed in some organized way), but I have only one message.”
His answer lingers in my mind some forty years later. What Mike understood about his preaching, we need to understand about the life of our church. We have many ministries: worship, Bible study, missions, daycare, music, support groups and many more. But we have only one message, “Abundant and eternal life is found in loving and living for Jesus.” So, no matter what we do to serve Christ through our church: care for infants, teach children, befriend youth, welcome guests, add technology to worship, sing an anthem, patrol the campus, lead Bible study, mentor disciples, give faithfully, or answer the telephone, we are striving to make our one message known. No matter who you are or where you’ve been, you can be God’s beloved child and faithful servant.
We have many ministries, but only one message. How are you making that message known?
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