I am always inviting people

to church.

I invite 30-50 people to

church every week. We are a "mission church"

and do need more people and more support funds, but it is

a bigger issue than that. In order for someone to be

evangelistic, and serious about witnessing and about the

growth of God's Kingdom, one must be convinced about

several things.

First of all, we cannot

share what we don't possess. Secondly, from a Christian

viewpoint, if one doesn't really believe that without

Christ one does not go to be with God when leaving this

earth, then one won't really care about the souls of

mankind.

Through all these

convictions or the lack of them, the church moves on with

or without you or me.

I remembered several times

my mother saying that the education she received in her

church was far more valuable to her than even her formal

education. By this she meant that what she learned in

church helped her through life's problems more than her

formal education. She certainly wasn't against education,

because she had attained her master's degree in special

education, but her life was in the church.

If you are a Baptist, do

you remember the evening "training union"

sessions? They were like Sunday School before the evening

service. It was here that I first learned to get up in

front of a group of people to speak. In those days

everyone had a part to present to the group, and I can

vividly remember the deep breaths and the knocking of the

knees before I spoke to the group.

I learned from those church

days that it really wasn't so bad after all to get up and

speak. Now it doesn't bother me if it's ten or ten

thousand people to whom I'm speaking. It all started from

the church on Sunday nights, week after week.

When I was serving as the

post chaplain on a certain assignment, our director

education was responsible for the religious education

program of our military post. It would be like the Sunday

School superintendent of a large church by today's

standards. This person came to me and said that she was

planning to shut down the Sunday School, choir, youth

group and Bible studies for the summer.

I was in total shock and

after our very heated conversation, all of the activities

remained alive and well.

From the beginning of time,

Satan has been trying to shut down churches. He does this

through any means available. It sometimes is done through

the wagging, gossiping tongue of a parishioner or the

stiff neck of a spiritually dead deacon, or through

personal attacks of people on the pastor, to name a few.

I know a small church that

in the last four years has "fired" over four

pastors and was proud of it. There are two kinds of

pastors they like, the one that just left, or the one

coming, but never the one they have. Imagine standing

before God and smiling and proudly saying, "I was

responsible for getting rid of the four men you sent our

way." And God's final answer is "depart from

me, you evil spirit, I know you not."

This last week, on the

Fourth of July, we as a church all went down to Charlie

Mask's farm and had an old-fashioned fish fry. We set up

our church tent, in case of rain, (bring it on, Lord),

and cooked up the fish we caught at a Fisher of Men

Retreat we had at Destin, Fla. The menu was truly

wonderful. We had the fish, hush puppies, french fries,

coldslaw, potato salads, watermelon and all the soft

drinks you could hold.

Before we ate, we bowed our

heads and thanked God for the men and women that had

sacrificed for the freedoms we all possess. Then one of

the ladies cooked up a very light coconut cake that was

out of this world. We then watched fireworks and oohed

and aahed and laughed. In my opinion, it doesn't get much

better than that, but it was all from the church with a

group of people who love God and are pooling their

resources for His Kingdom's work here on earth.

The church marches on, when

it's hot and when it's cold, through war and peace,

through good times and bad times. God bless the Church.

Come Lord Jesus.

The Rev. Dr. Knox Herndon

is the pastor of His House Community Church (SBC) and a

substitute school teacher in the Fayette County School

System, and a former Army chaplain. The church is

currently meeting in the American Legion Log Cabin across

from the fountain on the Square in Fayetteville, but not

for long. We will be moving to our new land location near

Senoia in late August. Prayer line 770-719-2365; e-mail

[email protected].