Crosspoint Baptist Church Blog

A few days ago, my wife’s grandfather gave her several copies of a magazine called Reminence. It is filled with old photos and stories of life back in the first half of the 20th century. I love old photos and so I have greatly enjoyed scanning the pages and seeing life of yesteryear. Now, since I am the ripe old age of 30, I have come to the realization that much has changed over the years. Morethan simply the technology, much has changed in the way of community. Gone are days of neighbors helping neighbors, family helping family, etc. There are 2 thoughts that I’ve stewed over the last few days and one is the need for community. Not just in the way of business and coop but in the body of Christ. There is missing in many churches the authentic sense of community that brings about unity, accountability, progress, and discipleship. Rather than seeing church as the gathering of God;s people for edification and equipping, church has become a marketplace of ideaology, inward fracture, and lack of vision. Church has to be viewed in the lens of a community of believers centered on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to display God’s glory in a fallen world.

a 2nd thought I had was that despite the warm memories of days gone by, there was a sense of appreciation for living in the here and now. I found that the values of family community never change but the methods of “liivng” have changed. To be clear, let me say that the message of the gospel, correctly understood and apprehended, NEVER changes. True community cannot exists apart from the gospel. Yet, the means we have today cannot stuck in the past simply because “that’s the way geampa did it.” Let me illustrate what I mean. Use to be that neighbors would often help each other harvest the crops because often times there was only 1 tractor in the community and it became a community event. Now, we have specialized machinery that huge farms have to bring in the crops. Old mule plows have been replaced with tractors that have Sirrius satelite radio. One thing that hasn’t changed is the planting of the crop. The seeds still have to be planted. The gospel is always to be proclaimed in every generation. This doesn’t change nor can it be compromimised yet to reach the world with we must use the methods God has given us, though they may be different than yesteryear, to procliam the gospel.