Grace Blog

My father was a home builder. He was not your typical large contractor who builds a home in 2 months. It often took my dad as long as 2 years to build a home—because he was a slow, but careful custom builder. His homes were built to last. He was always skeptical of new building material or methods. He was old school—he knew that a home that was built to last rested on a firm foundation. It took him forever to get a foundation completed. He insisted on French drains inside and outside of the footer. All footers had to be 36 inches deep and the walls were either 8 or 12 inch thick block with concrete poured inside the block every few feet. The outside of the blocks were plastered with 2 inches of mortar followed by a thick coat of tar. His foundations never leaked, cracked or swayed! They were built to last because he was a careful builder.

So when God tells the leaders at Corinth to be careful how they build the church and that no one can lay a better foundation than Jesus Christ, I think of my father. I want to be a careful builder of God's church. It scares me that I might build with poor material or use construction methods that cut corners and are quick, but may not last. I certainly want to be sure that Jesus Christ is the foundation and that the material built on top of Him will be quality material in the hands of skilled builders. I pray that God would teach me and the other leaders to be careful builders—and give us the grace and knowledge to become skilled master builders—building a church that will last.

There is a subtle but serious issue that we sometimes allow to creep into our churches.  I call it "the cult of the leader." This is when we following a human leader instead of looking to Christ. It includes choosing which church to attend largely on the ability of the preacher to preach or the band to play. Many large churches are big because of the popularity of the band or the preacher. And yes, as a pastor, I do struggle with jealousy, because I know that most of us suffer from the cult of the leader—me included!

Thinking that the leader must grow a church is wrong theology. It means giving lip service to God as the grower. Under the cult of the leader, jealousy and strife, whether secret or open, can be caused when people leave or people never come. But we do struggle to think that God could really grow a church without a great speaker or a great charismatic leader who is good with words and has perceptive wisdom and insight. It is hard to have faith that God can use a simple "Johnny apple seed" type to grow the church.

For Grace Bible Church, I pray that God will change lives so dramatically in front of us by the Spirit and power of God, that we would be forced to say that "our faith rest in the power of God," not the leader—believing that "neither he who plants not he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth! (1 Cor 3:7).