Last weekend we were blessed to have one person in each of our services make a formal commitment to "come home" to God. As a congregation we celebrated with these three wonderful people and the decisions they made.
While I celebrate with those who have made their way back to God, I can't help but think that there were so many more who are far from God that need to return. Then I started to think, "What if everyone that was present had a great relationship with the Lord?" If that is the case then we are looking at a completely different problem - I'm preaching to a bunch of saved people. And that is a huge problem! Jesus said that He did not come for the healthy but for the sick. He came to seek and save the lost, not to keep tripping over the found. The mission of our church is to lead people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and develop a lasting relationship with God and fellow Christians. Yes, we want believers to grow in their relationship with Christ and other believers but we don't want to forget we have a mission to share Christ with those who are far from God.
So I have begun praying a new two-fold prayer, "God, soften the hearts of those that are far from you; and bring more sinners across our path."
Pastor Kris,
ReplyDeleteI found an article in USAToday about an artist named Ray "Bubba" Sorensen from Menlo, Iowa, who paints murals on a boulder in tribute of the sacrifices of America's servicemembers. Any relation to you, or just coincidence with the last name? Also, I'm curious as to some of your favorite Christian songs. You post the books you read. What do you like to listen to? ~Thanks in advance!
Todd,
ReplyDeleteI've been asked about Ray Sorensen before. I've asked others in my family and we don't think that there is a direct relation. However, he does live in Iowa where many of my relatives live and he spells his last name with an "sen" as well which means he is a great Dane like me =). He does great artwork - sure wish I could say, "that's my cousin"... but I can't.
Regarding the music I listen to - I'll need to do a blog about that this week and catch everyone up with some of the tunes on my IPod. In the meantime here is a link to an older post (12/17/06) of some of the podcasts and songs I was listening to at that time - http://krissorensen.blogspot.com/2006/12/whats-on-ipod.html
Good hearing from you - when are you going to start your own Irun Man blog? That's a great name!