Seeking The Sick \\

Is your everyday life as a follower of Jesus living on mission focused on caring for the sick or the healthy?

Think about it.

I am not saying that each of us aren’t “sick.” We are. Included in the Gospel (the “good news”) is the not-so-good news of how selfish we are and the consequences that we face because of our the self-absorption. That bad news of course is met with the good news that God did not wait for us to say we were sorry for being so selfish with Him, but instead acted first to restore and forgive even before we sought forgiveness.

The point I am simply making is that if you focus all your ministry efforts, whether as an individual or a local church family together, on attracting more and more “healthy” people, providing programs to appease families who will keep bringing their kids and “tithing” their money and paying your facility maintenance costs, then you are focused on the healthy and not the sick. And if you think of church as “what it does for me” instead of “how I am the church to others,” then you are definitely focusing on the healthy and not the sick.

My friends Billy and Jason just got back from St. Petersburg, Russia. One of the things they noticed there was that when leaders are looking for the next place to minister, they don’t look for the most attractive place where maybe a “church” can grow well. They look for the darkest place where people who are so broken might be restored when met with the unconditional love and gracious mercy and infinite compassion and overwhelming forgiveness of Jesus. They look for the sick.

Is your “church” or are you as the “church” focused on giving yourself away to the sick or to the healthy?

Jason C. Dukes lives in central Florida, where he is a husband, father, church planter, leader of the Reproducing Churches Network, and the author of LIVE SENT: You Are A Letter.