Impactful churches

Tomorrow I will be preaching on Philippians 2:1-13 regarding what Paul had to say about what it means to be a church. I came across an article from Homiletics that discussed what a high impact church might look like. I decided to use much of what they had to say as it fit the series that I have been preaching on during the month of September. The focus has been on what it means to be a disciple and I found that this article and scripture helped bring it to an end about using all that previously was talked about and bringing to the level of what it means to use our gifts, be sincere in our love, bless others, rejoice, and not repay evil with evil, and last week was not being judgmental about others and honor the opinions of others and agree on the essentials. Now we take this to the church.
Paul writes that a church is most effective when we can be of like mind having the same love with one another, being one is spirit and purpose. As a church we have worked on reflecting on what is our purpose. Through those discussion and shared with all of the people we have decided that our purpose is to help others identify their gifts, discover their purpose, engage in mission, advance their faith, and live as a disciple. We have called this the IDEAL life. Our vision statement has been and continues to share our gifts and grow the faith. For me and often as written in the Gospels, faith is not a noun but actually in the Greek a verb. To be faithful means that we need to be willing to act on our faith. Sometimes that can be uncomfortable and can mean that we need to be willing to step out of our comfort zone.
By no means does this mean that we should not be thankful for all that we have and to enjoy our possessions. God does not mean for us to not have shelter, clothes for our children and food for our families. The concern is when we have made our possessions more important than our God or our faith. We need to be willing to take a stand and let Christ impact us, inspire us, and influence us. The importance of church is that no one can do it all. When we are able to be with others we can become more impactful in this world. Re-read Romans 12 and Romans 14. Let us be willing to be impactful as a church.