In my last post, I talked about our need to assist Christians in discovering ministries outside of the Sunday morning worship time. Basically, we need to expand our view of what ministry is. The time we spend in corporate worship is such a small percentage of our week; if that’s the only place that ministry takes place, the church will be insignificant in its community.

We have 168 hours in a week. If we take out 8 hours a day for sleep, that still leaves 112. How much time do we spend in corporate worship? Anywhere from one to four hours. That’s a small part of 112 hours; if that’s the focus of our ministry, then we shouldn’t be surprised when our lives are largely unfruitful.

We need vision. We need imagination. We need creativity. We need to continually find ways to serve God outside of the assembly, as well as inside.

Christian leaders should be focused on equipping the saints for works of ministry, on spurring them on to love and good deeds. We need to encourage our people to explore their gifts, to explore different ways of serving and ministering to the people around them.

When all we see is the assembly, we are doomed to a lifestyle of power plays and doctrinal arguments. When we lift our vision and see what the church can do around our community and around our world, we’ll soon be too busy serving to have time to argue over minutiae.

Get up. Get out. Go serve. Come together to worship God and recharge our batteries for another week of service.

Ministry is out there, not in here. Until we learn that, I don’t see anything for us but fussing, fighting, and decline.

By the way, I noticed that the Church Inside Out books are now available on Amazon.

You can buy the main book here: https://smile.amazon.com/Church-Inside-Out-Timothy-Archer/dp/089098915X/

You can buy the workbook here: https://smile.amazon.com/Church-Inside-Workbook-Timothy-Archer/dp/0890989168/