“in the end the medium always becomes the message.”  Alan Hirsch – The Forgotten Ways

How tough it is in pastoring a church to keep the focus on the message we are called to bring.  You may say that doesn’t make sense.  The church is all about Jesus and the message is about Him.  This is true, but if you are a Pastor you know what I’m talking about.

While we share the message about Jesus and His redemptive love over time people become more focused on the vehicle or medium that the message comes through than the message itself.  Thus, the focus becomes the church itself.

Pastoral leaders spend a great deal of time focused on the building of churches, finding better ways to do church, addressing the problems of the church.  Our focus is more on the organization of church rather than the person of Jesus. 

Without Jesus there is no church.  The reason for church is Jesus.  Our focus should be on Him.  In the book of Acts, those who believed on Jesus intuitively began to share their new life and message with those around them and they began to naturally gather wherever and whenever they could.  The church flowed out of the focus on Jesus. 

When we focus too heavily on the building of our church we can be pulled away from Jesus.  We can depend more on our ability to cleverly do church and focus more on the building the organization than on Jesus and His redemptive power.

As leaders, if we cause those we Shepherd to become more dependent on the church as an organization and her ability to provide programing for their every need, then they will become co-dependent on the church rather than Jesus.  We will raise anemic disciple who cannot stand on their own faith and to believe in the total ability of Jesus to personally enable them to face all challenges of life.

We must be careful to not focus more on our medium than our message.  It is a fine line between the two.  So fine that we can think it’s all about Jesus when we’ve made it more about the church we serve.

Keep the focus on Jesus.  If we are in Him, we are the church.  Jesus said He would build the church (us) as we laid hold of the revelation that He is the Christ.  He is everything you need.

  • Are you letting Jesus build you?
  • Does your life reveal a total dependence on Jesus?
  • When was the last time you blamed the church for something that you should have been dependent on Jesus for?
  • If you are a Pastor, do you spend more time on the medium or the message (Jesus)?