Sunday, January 24, 2010

One Minute

Jesus' mission to his followers is shared, at least in part, in Matthew 28:18-20.  It is a big mission.  It is a seemingly impossible mission.  It is a mission he originally shared with a small band of followers.

One of my favorite books is by Malcolm Gladwell.  It is called, The Tipping Point (buy it here).  He fills the pages with illustration upon illustration of how the unexpected has beomce the expected in personal lives, companies, and countries.  My mind soaks it up.

Jesus' mission was originally given to 11 disciples (some of who doubted, the text says).  From that small number grew the entire Christian Church.  Malcolm Gladwell eat your heart out.  It is a remarkable illustration of the effect far outweighing the cause.

We are raised to think that A + B = C and many times this is the case.  But there are numerous occasions where A + B = Whoa!  And this is  a Tipping Point.

As a follower of Jesus I believe in the Tipping Point.  I believe that Christ does more in and through us than we can even ask or imagine.  And the cool thing about a tipping point is that it does not take something big to make a big change.  It does not take changing everything for everything to change.

Rob Bell, in the DVD Everything is Spiritual, shares some great insight from the world of science.  Essentially there are hundreds of realities scientists know about our solar system.  For instance the sun is 93 million miles from the earth; the earth tilts at 23.5%; oceans are 3.4% salt; etc...  Again, there are hundreds of these known realities and all of them together create the life sustaining planet we call home.  If just one of those calculations were different, like the sun were 92 mil. miles away, it would throw off the who entire equilibrium and life on earth could not exist.

Phenomenal.
And do you get it?
It doesn't take much to change everything.

Jesus used a small band of followers to begin changing the world.
Our solar system is precisely designed for life on earth.
A + B does not always equal C.

Today I invited our church to change everything.
I invited our church to commit to one minute of prayer.  Just one minute.
One minute in prayer everyday for the mission of our church and the transformation of our community.

It doesn't take much to change everything.