No Time To Rest

I arrived home at 11:00 last night from the Pulaski County Evangelism Conference. I took the day off from work today (still having back issues) and managed to make some last minute adjustments to the schedule for the Tri-County Association Conference that starts on Saturday night.

One of the issues that I had to deal with was the time of the Saturday night schedule. Apparently the change to Daylight Savings Time has generated some concern for the churches that have to travel a distance to get here. The session would have been over around 9. Allowing time to get with the visiting evangelists would have most on the road by 9:30. That should've put everybody home by 11. Move the clocks up an hour and you're in bed shortly after midnight--I guess I didn't see the problem.

In truth, I hadn't considered DST, but if I had--I doubt that I would have done anything different. But that's why I'm not the Director of Missions (DOM). I would just tell them that you can sleep when you're dead and there is work to be done...let's get busy! However, under the leadership of our DOM, I did restructure the evening program and shaved 30 minutes.

The thought just occurred to me that there were three of Jesus closest followers that couldn't stay awake and pray while Jesus went a little further to pray before His crucifixion. I wonder how these pastors portray them in their sermons. I'm sure that there will be many that are up late to get all of the college basketball scores and see the highlights and besides...a little less worship of the Great and Might God won't really matter--will it? A good night's sleep is important, to be sure. But it isn't like we don't make exceptions for our own desires; a ball game, a night out with friends, an event at our own church like an all night lock-in, or just watching and old movie on TV.

Come on! Just tell the truth. God isn't really that important to us. Events like these are such an inconvenience and nobody gets saved because we don't want to inconvenience our unsaved friends to attend an event that we don't really want to go to ourselves. It is a burden to serve the King, isn't it?! We would rather let our friends march happily into hell (and maybe march in with them!) than to be inconvenienced. What ever happened to surrender? Was God serious about living for Him? He didn't really mean that part about, "Not everyone that says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter into the kingdom of heaven"--did he? Sometimes I have to wonder, "How many of our church members sit securely in their pews, thinking that their presence is going to get them into heaven?" Sometimes I have to wonder, "How many of our pastors are there for the job--not the calling?"

I have no doubt that there will be repercussions from this little rant. But it makes me sick to my stomach that we can go so far to please ourselves and yet worry about giving God 30 stinkin' minutes!!! I spent more time than that making the changes to please a few immature, self serving PASTORS!

Like I said...that's why I'm not a DOM.

John