Unleash

I will be blogging a series of thoughts and contemplations about what I was taught at the Unleash confrence. I have several pages of notes, so I will kick this off.

The first thing that I wrote down as a passage of the Bible, Matthew 16:18 which says, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Now going beyond what you see at first, which is that God tells Peter that he will recieve God's blessing, you have to start looking at WHAT God is saying, as in the syntax. God says the HE will build HIS church. WE are not building HIS church, and HE is not building OUR church. No matter how hard we try to build His church, only God can build His church. If "your" church is doing well, it is because you have made it about Him. And as long as the church is about God, not even the devil himself will be able to shut it down.

I think we need to take a look around and see if "our" church is really pleasing God. One thing that Perry Noble hit on was that we put up signs and plaques for people who have contributed to the church in some way (i.e. bought a pew, a window, painted the doors, and the like). Hasn't God called us to do that anyway? Why do some churches feel the need to make it a popularity contest and make it seem that one family is more important than the other? It that what God did?

And here's one random thought from Unleash: Wasn't it the religious people of the day that killed Jesus? Just saying!