Barry Meguiar 00:00
The pastors I want to know I am in awe of what you do. I mean, I could never do what you do. You have an awesome job. You really do, and you’re not always honored back properly. Your people are not always hanging around every year, every word we hear about this apathy of the people with the Pew that you preach your heart out, and when the service is over, they’re more interested in lunch and things of this world, and hard to give me any feedback at all over a sermon that Jesus poured your heart out on. And so there is this apathy issue within the church today that is significant. It really is significant. And I’d just like to share some thoughts with you for whatever they’re worth. I’m a layman. I’m a professional layman. I was bored of the church. You know, I calculated a few months ago that I have heard over I’ve sat under about at least a minimum, considered over 8000 sermons in my life. You know, I go to retreats, I listen to sermons on the radio. I listen Sunday morning. I get two or three sermons before I go to church on Sunday morning. So I mean, a lot, a lot of preaching coming my way. Then a number of different churches, I’ve been pretty faithful to my churches. So I know what it means to a pastor to have a faithful layman that’s there and loving on them and and doing the work of the church, and you can’t live without volunteers and a core of people that really love you. And I understand that whole dynamic, but on this issue of apathy, let me just give you a suggestion from my viewpoint, if I could, I think people are apathetic because they’re bored, they’re they’re they’ve been going through the motions of church so long that it gets wrote. I mean, it’s very easy to do that. You it doesn’t happen to you. You’re studying every week because you have to give, you know, you have to give a sermon on Sunday morning, maybe on Sunday night or Wednesday night or whatever. And so you’re continually digging and digging and digging, and you’re digging with purpose, because it’s a message that you’re having to share. But for us, lay people, if we don’t have to share, it’s just being religious, if you will, or being disciplined, if you will, that we come we sit through another sermon, and quite frankly, it can get to the point where it’s, yeah, I know Jesus loves me, and I know he’s full of mercy and grace and where we’re going to go to lunch. I mean, it can get down to that basic thing, unfortunately, no matter how hard, it’s not your fault. I mean, you’re preaching out, but you can just kind of get where you’ve just done it so much, you know. And the shame of that is that your ministry is being wasted, and it has to be so frustrating for you. When I started listening harder to what my pastor was saying, and taking that and looking for ways to use it. That next week, I started finding, wow, how smart my pastor is, and how God was using him to give the right message to me at the right time to change lives that week. And I would just suggest, you know when you’re preaching, before you preach, I would just say, or maybe at the end of every sermon, say something like, you know, I’ve already sought God for this, and this was God’s message for you for this week. I know that, and I would encourage you to go out this week and find ways to use this message you know, as often as possible throughout the week. Understand your Christ ambassadors. You’re in full time ministry. My job is to equip you for ministry, and my job is to send you, then out. You’re all surrounded by people of the world, non Christians. I’m not I’m surrounded by Christians. That’s my role. I’m here to equip you. The church is, in my words, the church is the service station, not the service. The service is outside the church. Send them into service. Send us pastors. When you send us, then things will happen, you know? And that’s when the life becomes exciting for lay people. I mean, it really does, when they catch that vision, you know what? And then what I would do, I’ve thought about this, if I was a pastor, it seems to me, I’d like to bring up lay people on the platform and bear witness to the very things you’re saying, you know, I think if the stories start coming back, imagine stories coming back different people using your sermon in different ways. And you call a guy, Dave, Hey, come here, friend, you just tell me a story before service. Come here. Oh, Pastor, just so amazing. Well, tell us the story. You know, Pastor, I never shared my faith. I didn’t think I was responsible. I didn’t think I was I was supposed to do that. Do you know 56% of all Christians have no thought that they have responsibility for the spiritual life for those around them, they have no thought they should be sharing their faith. So just the very fact that you send us makes a difference. A lot of people are doing it. Most are not okay. And when you send us, you get these kind of stories. Imagine Dave coming up, just a layman, one of the group. He’s, he’s one of us, and now he’s up there saying, you know, Pastor, I took your message to heart, and I was looking for ways to share. And then it just happened, you know, this friend, this co worker, this employee, this boss, somebody in the soccer field, came and they started sharing their problem. I was loving them. And asked them what was wrong if they. Were angry and do anything for them, they start sharing this problem. And you know, the very scripture you gave me on Sunday morning was the exact scripture I needed for that person, and it just broke him, and he broke into tears, and we cried together. We hugged each other, and I led him closer to Jesus Christ. And it was the craziest thing. It was wild like I never thought I could be used by God in my life when that kind of tests that talk about reality TV man, how about reality church? How about reality Christianity? Have people from their midst coming up and sharing it. Think of the impact that can have. I mean, it was a layman that got me going sharing my faith. Your job is to equip us and teach us whatever. But it’s something about have layman to layman, layman to layman, encouraging, saying that’s what I do. You should be doing it too, and we’re kind of third party endorsers for what you’re telling us, okay? And we can say it in a way that you can’t say it, but it has just a feeling of importance only because you’re getting paid to do it. I’m not getting paid to do it because I love to do it. It It changed my life. And when you get people, your people sharing and sharing, you know, everybody in that congregation, seems to me, would be taken back with the fact that one of their own got up there a week ago. I had no thought of sharing their faith, and this week is up on the platform talking about how they led somebody to Jesus Christ. Wow, just a thought, but the work is being done outside the walls of the church. It’s about being the church outside the walls of the church. It’s about extending your ministry outside the walls of your church to your community. So pastors, if what I’m saying is ringing true to you, and I hope it is, take it from a guy who’s been at church all his life. I have so much respect for you, and I just want to be encourager to you that lay people are ready to go to work. You just need to send us.
