Fine-Tuning Your Life - Part 3 ~ Making Your Church A Better Place to Go – A

Fine-Tuning Your Life - Part 3
Making Your Church A Better Place to Go – A

By Pastor Gary Wayne

I want to cover three areas in this series on fine tuning your life.
• Making you Home a better place to be.
• Making your Church a better place to go.
• Making your community a better place to live.

Who invented Church? Not Clergy! Who is church for? Not Clergy!
“If I wanted to make my church a better place to go, I would _______.”
This is just to stimulate your thinking on a personal level. What you do with the question and your ideas are up to you. This is not to evaluate the problems you know exist, or to evaluate what someone else is doing – this is for you – draw a circle and start there.
This message is more about revelation, and less about sharing of information.

Let start with a MAJOR foundation – what is church?

Text: John 15:15, Galatians 4:4-7, Matthew 16:18, Psalms 127:1
“Unless the Lord builds the house…” - What comes to your mind when we read this?
God has to be the director of where we are going, what, why and how we do church.

When Jesus said, “I will build My church,” was He referring to what takes place on Sunday mornings? Church = ek-klay-see'-ah, “called out ones” “governing body.” “We don't go to church, we are the church!”

So this question is almost a trick question, because it is not talking just about what happens to make our Sunday morning gatherings exceptional.
It is more about HOW WE DO LIFE!

Gal.4:4-7, Joh.15:14-15
I want to talk about the difference between the heart of a servant and the heart of a son.
Sonship is not a matter of gender or age, but it is an attitude towards the Father.
For reasons WAY beyond my understanding, God has chosen to give us an honored position as sons and daughters instead of servants.

In talking about making my church a better place to go, I want to look at some heart issues.
Because the highest quality of ministry flows from the heart of sonship.

Servants are motivated by wages, but what motivates sons? Relationship with the Father – a desire to please the Father.
In the family business, this is how Father would do it.

We live in a consumer mentality society – What’s in it for me – we go where the service is best, and if doesn’t meet my whims, I take my business elsewhere.
How does this attitude affect choosing where to go to church?
How does this attitude affect my church attendance?
How does this attitude affect my thinking towards ministry?

What heart attitude do I have concerning making my church a better place to go? Servant or son?

Let’s say Pastor Gary woke up one Sunday morning and decided to stay home – based on how I felt. Why would that be wrong?
Why do we plug into our church base on our feelings?

How would this work with my weekly job - If I work based on how I feel?

I believe it is partly do to the issue of son VS servant mentality.
Sons help the Father build the house where servants only serve in it.
Sons see a bigger picture where servants only do what they have to.

Let’s say we arrive here one Sunday morning and a bear has dragged a neighbor’s garbage over here and spread it around.
How will a servant respond to the situation? Someone should clean this mess up - It’s not my job, - I wonder who’s responsible for letting this look this way. What’s the heart issue?
How will a son respond to the situation? They clean it up without any hesitation. Why? What’s the heart issue? It’s their house. (They have the heart of the Father)

I want to simply close with a few personal questions:

Whose kingdom am I building – mine or the Father’s?

In being fully aware that God has called me personally to full time ministry, how does this affect my view of church?

Do I realize I need to be full of the Holy Spirit in order to walk out life – ministry?

When it comes to making my church a better place to go, do I approach this question as a consumer or a son?

“If I wanted to make my church a better place to go, I would I do?”