Grasping the Essentials

How do you boil the Christian life down to the essentials?  Once you have done that, how do you encooperate them into your life? 

There are five basic functions of the church and for the church to be fully functional, we as individual believers must grasp these essentials: worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry. Years ago I saw an illustration of how to remember those using your hand, each finger reminds us of something essential.

• Thumb - Worship.  It comes first and enables us to grip the things of God.
• Fore Finger - Evangelism.  It is the finger we use to point and we should always point others to God.
• Middle Finger - Discipleship.  It has grown longer than the others and reminds us we are to keep growing in Christ.
• Ring Finger - Fellowship.  We mark our relationships with our ring finger.  It reminds us that we have a family, a church that we belong to and we have a commitment to them.
• Little Finger - Ministry.  This is our weakest finger and reminds us that there are those who are not as strong and need help.

Now look at your hand and picture these things.  Make a fist, grip something tight.  Think about these five functions and ask yourself, "Where am I strongest?"  "Where am I weakest?"  "Where is God working on me the most right now?"  It is a quick way to do a self examination of your spiritual life and how you are really doing.

Sunday we begin a series on the five functions of the church -"Fully Functional."  God wants us to become a fully functional church by making us fully functional Christians.  Come join us on the journey...