Church Legacy

What is the church legacy that you will pass down to your children? What kind of church will you bequeath to them? Are you only investing in the short-term success of your church? Or are you fighting to establish the kind of church that will endure, that will flourish naturally?

Recently, Bret Eastman of www.lifetogether.com interviewed me about my books MissioRelate and Missional Small Groups and he asked me what it is I hope will result from my writing. This question caught me off guard and something within me spilled out that I did not fully realize.

I saw how I have this deep passion to ask difficult—and often unpopular—questions about the church and small group life that goes beyond the pragmatic questions of How do we make this work? or How can we grow our groups? While I can answer those questions, the real driver within me is to ask deeper questions about God, his church, and the kind of community that makes a difference in the world. I do this because I want to pass to my children a kind of church that is goes beyond the pragmatics of short-term church success.

I'm asking questions about how the church and the small groups can express a way of life that can have a deep impact upon our world. This is what I want to give my children. This requires long-term thinking. It requires us to think about our legacy.