a haunting question

This week Northplace Church has provided an intense week of prayer by opening their doors throughout the week and offering 3 blocks of time each day for prayer. As one of the pastors employed at this church, I am at these prayer sessions praying over prayer requests written by various members of our congregation. I was praying for a card requesting the spiritual maturing of our church in 2010, when God interrupted my prayer to speak to me. He asked me a question that I haven't been able to shake since He asked it. This is what He asked me:

If you made up every person of your church's congregation, would you be a healthy church?

The question stopped me dead in my tracks. Our church is made up of two levels; the bottom floor, and an over-arching balcony. I was pacing back and forth in this balcony. After the question was asked I looked down from the balcony at all the chairs on the bottom floor and imagined myself in every chair on a Sunday morning. That's when conviction started to set in.

As I was thinking about how to answer God's question, He started answering it for me.

"Well, I can tell you one thing. Your the church certainly wouldn't grow, since you never invite anyone new to church. And you don't really have any relationships outside of the church- at least not meaningful ones."

All of a sudden my stomach ached.

"And sometimes you give 100% of yourself in worship, but most of the time you don't. So I think it's safe to assume that worship would not be the priority of this church."

God went on and on with specific rebuke after specific rebuke. Needless to say, I put down the index card with the prayer request for a mature congregation and began praying for my own maturity in 2010.

The reason I post this is because I would like you to ask yourself the same question during this new decade. Sometimes we can just assume that we are right where we need to be, because of position, status, or perception. Let's be candidly honest with ourselves in 2010.

If you made up every member of the church you attend right now, would it be a healthy, vibrant, growing church?