Time To Leave

A friend of mine sent me this article entitled "Time to Leave." I just loved it. This article resonates with me so much. A huge focus of our ministry at Summit, is that people discover the fact that we are to be the living sent, incarnation of the Gospel. We are called to be the church. The power of our weekend gatherings is really in our dispersing and living out the message in our work places, neighborhoods, communities, etc. We don't want Summit to ever become a place for consumers, but for apostles...enjoy the article and have a great week. God Bless!

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 1 Peter 1:1

Apostle – God is a verb. He is all action. Even His Name, blessed be He, is a form of the verb “to be”. He is the great I AM, who was and is and will be. Would you expect those who display His Spirit to be any less than verbs? We are not nouns. Nouns are nice little boxes, neatly sorted and contained. But verbs are like a three-year-old in a candy store. Verbs go wild. They won’t be constrained. They do things.

When Peter says that he is an apostle, he doesn’t mean that he has a title over his office door. He doesn’t mean that he gets a special parking place or a designated chair on the podium. He means that he has been sent away. The Greek word apostolos might be a noun but it is based in an action. To be an apostle is to be sent out. No one can be an apostle sitting at home. You have to go out and do something to qualify for this job!

In that sense, there are many apostles in the world today. God is always sending someone to do His work. They don’t hold that position because they are elevated to some ecclesiastical role. They hold that position because they are responding to God’s call. In fact, you will likely find most apostles in the same places that you would look for Jesus – the homeless centers, the hospitals, the legal aid offices and the gutters. You can’t be an apostle to your own congregation, can you? You have to be sent away.

One of the tragedies of the church is the tendency to collect people rather than shipping them out the door. The church today is like a dam on a river. It’s interested in how much water it can collect behind its doors. Churches compete on the size of the pond. But none of that water is any good at all until it is released – until it is sent out from the dam. That’s when God gets moving. The nice big still lake behind the dam isn’t much of a verb. You have to open the spillway and let it rip before you see any power generated.

Peter knew this. He knew that the church grew, not because it collected, but because it distributed. The fastest growth in church history occurred when every little collection of water opened the gates and flooded the land. No one tried to get big. They just tried to get sent. I often wonder what impact we would have if we met on Sunday morning to get our walking papers. “This Sunday we will go out. Here, you go to the shelter. You go to the hospital. You go to the golf course. You go to the game. We are sending you out to embrace those who are lost in the culture. Be apostles today. Go away!”

Of course, Peter reminds us that we are sent out by Yeshua Messiah. He was also sent. I guess the pattern must be repeated if we are His apostles. One verb begets another verb. Verbs don’t have nouns for offspring.

Today, go away! Be a verb. Be sent by Yeshua. Go do something that reflects Him.