Soap, Poison and Popular Food, All in One Fruit!

My family and I were in Jamaica a few months ago. We wanted to see the “real Jamaica,” not the glitzy tourist part. So we hired a taxi driver to show us around the island. We saw typical neighborhoods where the residents actually live and the beaches where Jamaicans relax away from the tourists. Our driver showed us an Ackee tree, which bears the Ackee fruit. This fruit is the national fruit of  Jamaica. Though the fruit is not actually native to the island, it has been on the island so long that many people think it is. 

What I found fascinating about this fruit is that at a certain time during the year it can only be used to make soap. At another time during the year it is edible, but only if you cook it, as it is poisonous when raw. What a bizarre fruit that can be poison, soap and a popular food, all depending on the season of the year and how the fruit is prepared.

People are a lot like the Ackee fruit. I can think of some people who have been a real blessing in my life. Like a popular national dish, I enjoy being around them. Sometimes those same people have had to call me out on mistakes I've made, serving as the "soap" that helps me clean up my act. Regretfully, there have even been times when those very same people have been like poison, impacting my relationships with others in negative ways. Like the Ackee fruit, I've seen the same person be all three things at different points in my relationship with them.

But the difference between people and fruit is that people get to decide what role they will play. Whereas fruit is stuck with whatever role someone else has chosen, people can choose to be a blessing, or a poison, or a cleansing agent in someones life. People can choose to be high maintenance or low maintenance friends. They can choose to impact our lives in positive or negative ways. Let us remember the truth of Proverbs 27:9, "A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." We should determine to be the friend that refreshes others instead of poisoning them. When we choose to be a blessing, our own lives are more fulfilling. So better to be a blessing, or at least soap, than to be poison!

------------------------------------

Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY

Are We Sowing Enough to Reap Abundantly?

2 Corinthians 9:6 – “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

I was fascinated by the older gentleman’s story as he shared it with me. He had grown up incredibly poor. After high school he got a low level job working for the county. Over the years he worked his way up the ladder and got several promotions. But because his life situation never afforded him the opportunity to get an education, he could only advance so far. He eventually hit a ceiling without any further opportunity to advance. He was content with his situation and made enough to provide for his family, it was just enough. He was rarely able to give his family any “extras.” They learned to be content.

The older man went on to explain that one thing he learned as a young man was to tithe. Even though at times it was a real a sacrifice, he and his wife always tithed. Sometimes, they would give beyond his tithe if they heard a family in the church was in need or if a missionary spoke at the church and had some urgent ministry need. He and his wife excelled in the grace of giving even though their income was never more than middle class.

Through an unusual set of circumstances, he was offered the chance to retire early and take all of his retirement from the county in a lump sum. He found a financial planner who took the lump sum and invested it on his behalf. To his pleasant surprise, those investments performed amazingly. In fact, over the next ten years he made more money off of those investments during his retirement than had had made in all of his years of working. Suddenly he found himself with more money than he needed. As a result, he and his wife significantly increased their giving to missionaries and to the needy. 

That is where I came into his story. For three years in a row he and his wife were the largest contributors to the mission work my wife and I were involved in. Their giving made a real difference at a crucial time in our ministry. Though many assumed our largest giver was some rich business tycoon, in reality, he was just a hard-working man who had been faithful with little and God had rewarded him with much.

I once asked him why he thought God had blessed his investments so much. Without hesitation he responded, “God promised that if I sowed generously, He would bless me generously and God kept His promise.” Though my friend has now passed on to glory, I have never forgotten his clear understanding of the sowing/reaping concept. I wish more Christians understood this simple truth as much as he did.

Far too many of us are waiting on some amazing windfall thinking that when it happens, THEN we will give. But this man understood that such windfalls only come AFTER we give, not before. God honors those who demonstrate their faithfulness in giving. Consider this, if God decided that next year He would give you exactly ten times the amount of money that you gave to His work last year, would you have more money or less than you had this year? If we want to reap a harvest in the future, now is the time to start sowing.

Lord, help us learn the power of sowing, knowing that in Your own time and way, You will bless us with the harvest of righteousness. Amen.

_____________________________________________

Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY

Why Should We Join A Church?

Hebrews 10:25 - "Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

A few weeks I wrote a post asking if church membership really matters. You can read that post here. I was surprised how many people shared it and commented on it through social media. The post talked about churches that have a lot of names on their membership rolls of people who no longer attend and the reluctance to remove those names because it makes the church sound "bigger" than it really is.

In this post I want to touch on the same subject, but from a different perspective. In my previous post I focused on the perspective of the church who had all those extra names. Now I want to focus on the individuals who have their names on the rolls of churches they no longer attend. Here is a challenging question, why did we join a particular church to begin with? Was it to please our parents or grandparents? Was it because other young people our age were going through the confirmation/membership process and we just followed the crowd? Were we looking for new friends? Were we looking for business connections that a faith community might offer? Were we looking for a place to have a wedding, funeral or other family experience? None of those reasons are necessarily wrong. But they are probably not the purest motivations for joining a church. When we join churches for these reasons, we are seldom as loyal, committed, and involved as we should be. Joining a church for the wrong motivation often results in an attitude of what can we get from the church instead of what we can contribute to it. We might find ourselves gone for weeks, or months, at a time until a need comes up in our lives that the church might meet.  This is not healthy for us, nor is it healthy for the church.

So why should we join a church? The main reason to join a church is because we agree with their mission and purpose and we want to help move that mission and purpose forward. That does not mean we have to agree with everything in the church, but it does mean that we support the overall direction the church is moving in. It also means we need to do our part to help the church fulfill that mission and purpose. A church filled with people who have this type of motivation will be a healthy church and one that is making a real difference in the community.

Sadly, too many of us want all the benefits of having a church be there for us when we need it, but too few of us are willing to do the work to keep the church healthy between our times of need. That is not realistic. Though churches may be able to eek out some way to survive under those conditions, those churches will not be healthy or making the impact in their community they could be making. 

If we are going to join a church, we must be willing to rearrange our schedule so we are present more than we are absent. We must be willing to rearrange our budget so our financial contributions are enough to actually make a difference. We must be willing to rearrange our leisure time so we can volunteer. This is what it takes to make a church healthy. Yes, it is a big commitment. It is that very commitment that keeps many people from joining a church. But the challenging question we must ask ourselves is, why should we expect other people to do all the work to keep the church there for us so we can just pop in from time to time, enjoy the service, and then disappear for another 3 months? We need to be givers, not takers. We need to be contributors, not users. 

If we have found a church whose mission and purpose we agree with, then we should go through whatever process is required to become members. Then instead of just being a name on a roll, let's be the best members we can be. If we have not yet found such a church, then keep looking because when we find a healthy church and join it, it is a powerful experience worth all the adjustments in time, giving and volunteering.

Lord, help us find a great church and make a genuine commitment to it. Amen.

----------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY

Is our Church Vibrant with Life?

Matthew 6:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

A few months ago I had to fly to Texas for a business trip. Because the city where my meeting was being held also had a cruise port, my wife decided to go with me and we took a cruise a few days before my meeting started. It was a rare opportunity for us to get away together.

As we were leaving the port, we noticed the water in the port was grey and not very pretty. When we arrived at our destination in the Caribbean Sea, the water was strikingly colorful with bands of blue and green. Out of curiosity, I googled why the water was different in color between the two places. Though there are a variety of theories, the bottom line was that the water is so colorful and amazing in the Caribbean because the water is healthy and full of life. Microscopic organisms make the water rich with color and provide a healthy foundation on which the rest of the ecosystem is built. On the contrary, the grey water in the port had very little life left in it, and therefore the ecosystem there was much less healthy, making it less colorful and less beautiful.

There is a powerful spiritual truth to be learned in the contrast between these two types of water. Just like one body of water had more life and beauty than the other, some churches have more life and beauty than others. Some churches have endured so much spiritual pollution over the years there is little life left in them. They go through the motions but it lacks the vitality it once had. The entire spiritual ecosystem has been compromised. Though it is possible for it to be brought back to health, that cannot happen without radical alteration of fundamental actions and even then it will take a long period of time.

Other churches have a healthy spiritual foundation, and therefore a healthy spiritual environment where Christians in various stages of life can grow and thrive. Those churches have colorful ministries and powerful life giving programs. They are stunning to observe, and rightly so.

The contrast between the two is clear to anyone with eyes to see. Though it can be painful we must ask ourselves what is our church like? Is it filled with spiritual pollution or is it healthy? If we realize our church is unhealthy, what can we do to help rejuvenate it so new life can emerge? We know the Lord wants our church to be healthy. If we are willing to do our part to bring that about, we know the Lord will bless those efforts. But as long as we live in denial, or are unwilling to do what needs to be done, our church will remain unhealthy.

Lord, help our churches to be full of life and vitality. Help us to do our part to make it so. Amen.

Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Terry-W.-Dorsett/e/B00405U4NY