"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God" (Acts 15:19 ).
I have found it very disturbing that the one thing that was designed to help bring non-Christians into a relationship with Jesus is often the very thing that has been the barrier to people finding Jesus - the Church. By Church, I'm referring to the assembling of believers in a specific location. Let me emphasize that I am speaking as an ordained minister who has served for several years on church staff and now am very involved as a lay person in my local body. Mainly I am speaking from a broken heart for the people I've seen turned away by the Church or turned off to Jesus because we as the Church made it too difficult for them to get to Jesus.
One of my greatest concerns is knowing I will one day stand before God and give an account of my life to Him, and realizing only then that I was more "religious" than changed. According to Romans 8:29 , God's ultimate goal for my life is to transform me into a person that looks, thinks, and acts as much like Jesus as possible until He takes me home.
The two greatest commandments in the Bible include loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. While many people boast of loving God (or give an hour to Him on Sunday anyway), we don't have to look very far to conclude that the majority of us do not do a good job loving our neighbor as ourselves. I took some time to poll some friends of mine and asked them a very basic question: "What typically keeps you from loving your neighbor as yourself?"
At a recent choir rehearsal I attended at my church, the time came for us to line up on the stage and take our positions for practice. In addition to our regular stage or platform, we have a large turntable that serves as the staging for our worship band. As I attempted to step down off of the turntable and onto the regular platform, I didn't realize that there was a black, wooden riser just beneath me. You can guess what happened next as I thought I was stepping down onto the platform. You guessed it. I caught my foot on the riser and had an unplanned, up-close and personal conversation with the floor.
I think it is safe to say that all of us who are living life with intentional focus and purpose want to make an impact on our world. And more specifically, I think it is safe to say that those of us who wholeheartedly seek to follow Jesus desire to make an eternal impact on the world in one way or another. But success in doing this can be defined in a number of ways.
"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God" (
One of my greatest concerns is knowing I will one day stand before God and give an account of my life to Him, and realizing only then that I was more "religious" than changed. According to 
The two greatest commandments in the Bible include 
At a recent choir rehearsal I attended at my church, the time came for us to line up on the stage and take our positions for practice. In addition to our regular stage or platform, we have a large turntable that serves as the staging for our worship band. As I attempted to step down off of the turntable and onto the regular platform, I didn't realize that there was a black, wooden riser just beneath me. You can guess what happened next as I thought I was stepping down onto the platform. You guessed it. I caught my foot on the riser and had an unplanned, up-close and personal conversation with the floor.
I think it is safe to say that all of us who are living life with intentional focus and purpose want to make an impact on our world. And more specifically, I think it is safe to say that those of us who wholeheartedly seek to follow Jesus desire to 
