The Tigers, Baseball, and the Church

Well, baseball season is almost here. The Tigers have signed yet another player with lots of experience, if you catch my drift, and we hope this is a good year. As I reflect on baseball, we can see that the teams that have quality seasons year after year, generally have a great, quality system in place. Well, enough about baseball. What do I know, except that I'll also be rooting for the Reds this year because Chad Reineke is in their system and will make a difference for the Reds this year!
Now, to the Church. What kind of system do we have? Is our system designed to follow our mission from side to side, top to bottom, and everything in between? Do we have people at every level who know the mission and are pumped to make it happen? Are people at every level motivated to move up to the next level, as often as possible, for the rest of their lives?
Sometimes, okay, often, I think we're (the Church) like a baseball system that spends money bringing in players with years of experience (hope you catch my drift) without trying to develop quality clubs and players at every level. We focus on worship (Please, I do know that worship is very important!) and keeping members happy instead of working (hope you catch my drift) to develop and form disciples. Our primary mission is to make disciples who will love God with all they are and love their neighbor as themselves. Yes, we want to have quality worship and all that, but if we're not developing and forming disciples at every level, we are failing big time!
At Grace Church, the number one ministry we have right now is a free soup supper every Tuesday night at 5 pm. The food (soup and other things) is top quality and mostly homemade. It doesn't cost a centot eat it, and anyone can take a healthy portion home with them. We deliver meals to those who need it (about 14-15 households every week). There are people from various churches, those who don't go to church, and from Grace church who are helping Lila (the 80+ year old originator of the ministry) to make it happen every week. There are various people in a wide variety of life circumstances who enjoy the great food every week. I have gotten to know most of them on a personal basis. I've developed relationships with several, which has allowed me to have some very meaningful conversations of the spiritual and non-spiritual nature. There isn't a person involved in this ministry in any way who doesn't know this is a God thing through and through. The really cool thing is that I am just one of many people who take part in this ministry.
I am so proud of Lila and the others from Grace church who make this happen every week (I would start naming names, but I would forget somebody and I don't want to do that.)! If this was a baseball system, the soup supper would probably be seen by many to be a single A club. But, this single A club could be thrown into the World Series any day and hold their own against any of "the bigs!"
No ministry in the Church is more important than another, not even the soup supper. When we focus on being a system full of teams all working together we become a life giving part of the Body of Christ. When we're only trying to create little kingdoms, others can't see God and we lose our saltiness, as Jesus said.
I have called it the "Church" with capital letters because I'm not just talking about Grace church, I'm talking about the Church in general! I love God and the Church through which God's disciples operate! We can do it because God is with us and we are God's disciples!