First Love is...About Kingdom growth

Sorry I saw this post that was supposed to be published weeks ago and apparently was only saved as a draft.

It is very easy for a church to become church growth oriented. Why not? If the church grows then more people are hearing the gospel, and more people are being connected to Jesus. The problem, however, is when we get offended when they go to other churches. Yes we want them to attend church...if it's our church.

What if a church wanted to see the Kingdom of God grow, not just their church? That would change everything. If my goal as a Christian/Pastor/Minister was to increase the Kingdom of God and not to increase my church attendance, I have a new agenda. I'm no longer concerned with where you go to church, as long as you are chasing after God, as long as you are growing and wrestling with His word. I now care about you, because God loves you, not because you have a bunch of kids that would fill our youth ministry (this may or may not be a thought I've had in the past).

When a church grasps this, we see true unity. We see pastors not talking about their numbers and how great everything is, but instead praying for each other because they can all get beat up sometimes. We hear people say things like " __________ church has a ministry you would love, you should go check it out." instead of "we should start the same ministry. Look how successful it is over ther." There is nothing wrong with doing a ministry other churches are doing, but there is also nothing wrong with joining together!

At First Love we want to empower the ministries in our community, even if they aren't recognized as "ministries". Whether they are through local or federal government, or secular non-profits, or even other churches.