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Church Multiplication and Giving Up Control

Church Multiplication and Giving Up Control

Dear Pastor, Jesus is King, and you are not.  

The hardest thing for people to admit is that Jesus is King and they are not. We all want to be in control.  We want to be the masters of our own destiny, but fundamental to Trusting Jesus is surrendering to Him.  It's no different for pastors. Pastors, like kings can fall into the self-deception that everyone is better off when they are in charge. "If everyone would just listen to me, everything would be ok." This is one reason why churches don't multiply. 

Multiplication means pastors aren't as important as they might think. It means their vision language will get diluted as the church becomes decentralized.  It means people won't hear their sermons every week.  It means they can't manage leaders within a church structure.  It means they lose control.  

I'm not saying pastors have sinister plans to control people. Their control doesn't usually come out of selfish motives...usually. It comes our of fear. They want the best for people, and they are afraid of what will happen if they aren't in control. They forget that Jesus has been leading the church since before they were born, and He will be leading it after they are gone.   

Baptism

Baptism

At our church, we place a high value on proclaiming your trust in Jesus by following Him in Baptism.  When we baptize, we celebrate.  It is a pretty special time.  We high-five, eat food, tell stories, and remember how good God is to us.  We have a baptism service coming up soon, so I thought I would write a little bit about it:

WHAT IS BAPTISM?

Baptism is an outward proclamation of an inward decision to follow Christ.  

WHY DO WE BAPTIZE? 

In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus talks about baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  In the first century, baptism was used to show that you were following the teaching of a particular rabbi.  Today, we do the same thing.  Baptism is an outward proclamation of a personal decision to follow Jesus.  After you tell Jesus, "I'm in," you tell the world through baptism.