Maintenance or Multiply?

John 10:11-18
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2008 Harold Dinsmore

Why go to church?  What is its value to the world and society?  In the year 2000 it was reported that “less than half of our adult population will say that religion is very important in their daily lives and less than 40 percent will even associate themselves with a Protestant denomination.”[1]  According to published, reliable statistics, where is America going?  It is going down the wide road of self-destruction.  America, the land of the free and home of the brave is losing its faith in God.  No longer will our coins speak “in God we trust” and it is mostly true that Americans are not trusting in God any longer anyway.  Our nation is on a crash course with paganism.

               What is the church to do?  How might we help in, if not stopping or at least slowing it down?  I believe it revolves around 2 words.  Maintenance or multiply.  What those words bring to mind is the mission of the church.  Why do we as a local church exist?  Is it for fellowship and just one big happy family or is it more than that?  I propose to you today that we must be the active church of the good shepherd.