Thursday, May 19, 2011

Branded!

Sitting in the hospital with Kenny, I finished a book by Tim Sinclair entitled Branded. Great food for thought!

We are told to go out and make disciples. How do you thinking we are doing?

Perhaps even the title of the writing today offended you, I don't care. I am branded for Christ, but perhaps we need to rethink how we are trying to build the kingdom.

Please pick up or order this book for yourself! It is fabulous!

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the church spends 1,551.466 for each new follower of Jesus. ~ which in turn means that if your church budget is 500,000 annually it would on average bring one person to Christ every three years! WE are messing up badly. Do you know that barely half of American called themselves Protestants in 2007, probably less than half now...

Among 18 to 29 year olds, 25% have no religious affiliation!
People are moving into the "unaffliated" category three times faster than leaving it!

Let's take a good look at ourselves...people in the church! Something is not working!

Albert Einstein said a long time ago that doing the same thing over and over again was insanity...Is that what is wrong?

Do you know that Tim points out 2 things that have happened ~ Our society no longer thinks they need what Jesus offers. We are a self-reliant world with no desire to cater to anybody but ourselves! Ouch, but think about it....

Second, If we still see benefits then most no longer have a good perception of who He is or of those who follow Him! Another OUCH!

Tim went on to explain that if people come to check it out they are no longer really looking at what Jesus is about, they are testing us and we are failing! They look at us to see if we walk the talk. If we are living the hype. They look at us and how we respond when life throws us a curve ball and how we survive the test.

Pick up this book! Let's take a really good look at ourselves and allow our life to show that truly God changed it from what it was. We must begin to walk the talk! Admit when we fail, but that God picks us up! God doesn't promise us a flower filled world....In fact, once Christ is in us! The devil gets busy, so don't expect anything else...We do win in the end!

We win and it was amazing adventure along the way! Pick up Tim's book ~ Branded! Share it with your Sunday school class, your Pastors, your friends! WE need to look at ourselves!!!

Sweet blessings,
Debbie

2 comments:

Rozi said...

So true. I'll have to try to get that book.

Tim Sinclair said...

Debbie -

Thanks so much for reading the book. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it. It sounds like it challenged you as much reading it as it did me writing it! :-) Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks again for taking the time to read BRANDED. I appreciate it.

tim