By Mike Bell
Ike made a comment on my recent piece on Recession and Church growth that I think deserves some further attention. Ike begins by quoting from Thomas Kelley who wrote:
The deepest need of men is not food and clothing and shelter, important as they are. It is God. We have mistaken the nature of poverty and thought it was economic poverty. No, it is poverty of soul, deprivation of God’s recreating, loving peace. Peer into poverty and see if we are really getting down to our deepest needs, in our economic salvation schemes. These are important. But they lie farther along the road, secondary steps toward world reconstruction. The primary step is a holy life, transformed and radiant in the glory of God.
Thomas R. Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, page 123.
Ike continues by writing:
Our economic recession began in a recession of the soul. If our hearts were filled with the Holy Spirit, we would be so freed from financial foolishness that we would not have established lifestyles, personally and nationally, that we now know are practically unsustainable, politically divisive, economically backward and perhaps even militarily risky.
The most relevant message to our nation today, and to ourselves, is personal repentance, confession of sin, newness of life and hope in the gracious promises of God in Christ.
Over the last few days I have been thinking about this, particularly as it relates to this blog. I don’t won’t to get so wrapped up in other statistics and other thing that I forget the focus that this blog was supposed to be about. It is about the good news of Jesus Christ, and how that is lived out throughout Christianity. Sure I find the numbers interesting and I am going to continue to put up posts along those lines. As much as possible though I want to try and tie them back to what it means concerning the good news of Jesus.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Michael Bell
Joshua Hearne
Tim Melton
Joel Black
Mike
What an interesting post this is! Ike is also blessing my blog with his Christ central comments.
I think this has become my journey as well. The small group that I lead each week is made up of people who have been Christians most of their lives. Yet they do not really know Christ. They know of Him and they work for Him. It is an epidemic of sorts. The pendulum of the overly restrictive generation of the 40′s and 50′s swung so far to the other side that there is no narrowness or separation left. A Christ follower should be distinct. Remember that old question ” If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”. Well I think, if applied to the modern church it may be a disappointing answer.
Hi Mike,
How are the renovations going? Just a quick question for Ike: “May I use your quote about the recession in my sermon this Sunday?” Of course, I will give you credit for the comments. Thank you.
Mitch Sylvia
Hi Mitch,
I don’t have contact information for Ike, and he is not likely to see this. I would say go ahead and use it. It falls under fair use guidelines, and he put the quote out there as a public comment.
Mike