Wednesday, October 11, 2006

church wisdom from the vegas son

Jake grew up in the church. His father was the preacher and his mother led the singing. After graduating highschool, Jake went to bible college and entered the ministry.

Today, Jake works for a construction company in Las Vegas.

Not the path his parents would've chosen. Not the path he would've predicted. But the path he has traveled nonetheless.

Sometimes Jake feels like a failure because he no longer works in a church. Sometimes he actually feels like more of a minister because of it. But truly I'm not writing to comment on Jake's situation. I want neither to glorify it nor condemn it. I simply want to share with you a comment he made to me recently.

Eight weeks ago, his parents started a contemporary service at church and his mother has been leading the worship for it. Last Sunday, an elder made a discouraging comment to her about the fact that the contemporary service hasn't "grown the church" like it was supposed to.

In discussing that comment with him yesterday, Jake said this:

"Programs and services don't grow a church. People excited about Jesus grow a church. Now, programs and services can be good and can help stir that excitement, sure. But we can not rely on them to do the growing of our churches for us. A church grows because its people are excited about Jesus and naturally do what good Christians are supposed to do, namely: talk about and act like Jesus."

I like that. Whether Jake is holding a hammer or a Bible in his hands right now, I don't know. But I do know that those are the words of minister of the Gospel of Christ.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think those words are very true. It was someone like Mike Baker that got you guys to start going to Oasis, not how cool the youth group was, you know. Am I way off the mark here?

Jeff

Anonymous said...

yeah, i think that's exactly right Jeff. Oasis was cool, but that's not what kept me going. It was the relationships. I went because I connected with the people and people took a direct interest in me. It could have been the biggest piece of dog crap in the world and I still would have went because I truly liked the people there and they were excited about Jesus. Luckily for us however, it wasn't which was a pro, but that's not why I went.

The Anonymous Human said...

He sounds smart. You should listen to everything that jake guy says. I heard he has a blog too...

bill said...

yeah, i laugh because churches are so concerned with being relevant. passion and authenticity are always relevant. talk about ipods or don't, have loud music or don't, doesn't matter. be real, and be really in love with Jesus.