This past Sunday was one of those days that I wished my church’s sanctuary was a little more technologically advanced than it is. The title of my sermon–the 5th in a series on “The Church You’ve Always Wanted“–featured the thesis that a church which is giving true expression to God’s intentions is a church that serves a broken world. Since our choir’s anthem was a text that invited people to “look at the world,” I figured that I’d found the perfect image with which to introduce the message: a projection of our world using ”Google Earth” to zoom from a global view to the streets and buildings of our small town.
Alas, our sanctuary (a lovely space constructed in the mid 1920’s) lacks that capability. So I tried to use the next best thing: an inflatable globe imprinted with NASA satellite imagery to produce a realistic “world from space” impression. (Okay, so maybe it’s not the ‘next best thing.’ But it was all I could come up with on relatively short notice.)
Imagery aside, the message used Jesus’ words from Matthew 25 to make a point about which I feel a strong conviction: unless we as individuals and as a church are prepared to open our eyes to the needs of the world around us and to offer a sacrificial response, then we cannot claim that the love of God is in us.
What are the needs of your community? What creative things are churches doing to respond to those needs?
