JESUS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

What an interesting statement. Early this morning Paul Vieira's book “Jesus Has Left The Building” was recommended to me. I've only read the first chapter and already I have been challenged.

Many pastors have learned how to operate without dependency on the Holy Spirit. Tragically, you can learn to study without revelation, to preach without anointing, and to lead with words but not by example.

We need to once again become desperate in our dependency on Jesus.

I recently shared with our congregation that we must stop praying for God to bless what we are doing. Rather, we should pray that we are involved with what God is blessing!

Paul states, "there comes a time when believers should mature to a point where they are able to feed themselves and others in need. We know so much today. Why are so many Christians staying in infancy?"

So often what we traditionally do in the church building is completely
irrelevant to the people in our culture, especially to the emerging generations.

There is a pressing question that drives my quest for an authentic expression of church for me: "If Christ were to send a letter His church, who would get it?"

Paul said, “It seems like Jesus' church was the gang that hung out with Him, and they gathered in a house, or by the sea, or in the desert, or wherever they happened to be. Jesus did not start a religion or an organization. He lived a lifestyle in the context of community and mission.”

The church Jesus started looks very different to what we call "church" today.

Church as we know it today looks extremely different from what it was in the beginning. But things are changing. Christianity, as we know it, is morphing and its appearance will be a reality that we haven’t seen in a long time, perhaps two thousand years.

I am ordering several copies of this book for our church library. Let me know if you want to borrow a copy. May God lead us by His Holy Spirit! Out of the building and into the streets!