This Saturday night, I, along with some members of our church, are going to lead worship for another church in Spring Hill. The Pastor actually lives in the same sub-division as we do and is an extremely nice guy and a great pastor. They are another new local church that currently needs to bring in different musicians and singers to lead worship every week.

I volunteered my services because I do believe very strongly that we are blessed in the worship dept. It seems for the size of our church, that we have a large pool of talented and anointed musicians and singers to pick from. Probably has to do with my huge heart for worship that is powerful, life changing and extremely God pleasing, and probably my background as a worship leader. I love seeing God move mightily in our worship time and I know it greatly effects our time in the Word. You can’t plant seeds unless the soil has been properly prepared first.

So we come back to the point at hand….spending this Saturday at another church serving another’s vision. It’s easy to get wrapped up in OUR vision, OUR people, OUR dreams, OUR things and become quickly overwhelmed. In fact taking care of one growing church can really take up a lot of time. But I believe God thinks differently.

God is into overall KINGDOM building not OUR kingdom building. It’s so easy to think we need to concentrate 100% on OUR church and that we will see the reward from our time. Many times we do and it’s blessed. I am from another train of thought. I believe  that God desires us to give out to others and watch THEM be blessed. SouthView has tried to establish that from day one and every month look to find ways to do that. We even have my friend Jody in charge of Outreach to help us think of others more than ourselves. That goes beyond the poor and sick but also to the other churches and our communities.

Recently we hosted two worship nights and invited and welcomed other churches to be part of that night. We have brought our worship team to help other church’s services and have offered them free use of our building for their meetings. We are currently collecting food for another church’s food pantry in hopes of blessing them.

Am I here to sing the praises of OUR church? No…I just feel strongly that we ALL need to do these things in our own personal lives as well. Please stop dwelling on what you don’t have, and take your strengths and go help someone in need. If you are a builder that is out of work, instead of worrying about your bills, go find a person that needs help with their house and use your talents to fix it for free. If you are a single mother out of work, use your time to cook a meal for someone that is sick or needing assistance. If you are going to college and barely making enough money to pay your bills make time to go help cut a lawn or clean someone’s house just to bless them. If you are pastor, stop worrying about keeping your people and send them out to help others. Could you lose some to other churches in the process, yeah….but imagine the blessing they might be to someone else’s church that could use their talents and gifts in a better, deeper way, than you might be able to do.

I’m waiting for the day when churches will stop competing and start serving one another. I’m hoping for the day when different pastors, instead of comparing each other, actually enjoying hanging with each other and enjoy each other’s diversity. I’m longing for the day when Christians serve each other regardless of what church they attend or what denomination they belong to. I have to say that Spring Hill has quite a few Kingdom Minded Churches in it. I’ve met a handful of pastors that have a heart to help other pastors and churches. It’s very refreshing.

So Church, get out and show the world what real selfless UNITY looks like!

M