Gather.Equip.Mobilize.

A few weeks ago my wife surprised me with a trip to, what I consider a home away from home, South Louisiana. Even though I consider myself ‘from’ Indianapolis, I have moved around so many times but I spent about 6 years in South Louisiana; thus it is my ‘home away from home.’ Whenever I come into contact with the people, the architecture, and especially the food I feel as if I am ‘home.’

So I was down there, visiting with people I used to work and live with, just having a great time. The church has over 2000 people attending a few campuses and several services and has really stepped it up since I left. Since I wanted to see as many people as possible, I was planning on going to one of the larger, more familiar campuses. However, this church started a new campus about 45 minutes away. There was a lot of buzz around it, and though I wanted to go I decided I would go to where the masses were, so again I could see as many as possible in my short time. Through a turn of events, I ended up going and giving the pastor I was staying with a ride to the campus as he was filling in by preaching that day.

So I go to this campus. I have my moleskin and pen in hand to take notes; not on the sermon mind you, but the church. Here they are:

- This is a good thing
- Reconciliation – word keeps coming to mind
- Racial, but also reconciling/redeeming as individuals and a community to what God has purposed.
- Worship is tight
- Leader is still growing/getting comfortable as a leader, but this is still good for 1st year
Good atmosphere.

Now, there aren’t a ton of notes, and here’s why. The first comment “This is a good thing” stuck with me for the rest of the day. In fact, two weeks later, I’m still tossing that around in my head: “good thing.”

God said about the creation of the world, “It is good.” About the creation of mankind, “It is good.” He did not say “It is perfect” or “It is holy,” rather, “It is good.”

We, as in modern society, have made good not so good of a word. We want our services, our churches, our people to be ‘Great’ or ‘Excellent,’ but never merely ‘good.’

We want things to be perfect, but God is probably asking for them to just be ‘good.’

So this service, that is less than a year old (1 year on Easter), is running 350+ people. Is not perfect. But it is good.

I say it’s time to lower our standards to God’s. Our new measuring stick should not be “Is this great?” Rather, “is this good?”