Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Burning leaves

I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in response to a question posed during a study called "Sent" by Ed Stetzer...

What change can your church make in the world?

I pondered this, and kept being reminded of the days in my childhood that Dad would burn leaves. We would start by getting our rakes and preparing the leaves into piles, strategically placing the leaves to allow for the most efficient and complete burn as possible. Usually ending up with 5-7 piles all over the yard. Dad would then go to the first pile of his choosing, and strike a match. He would light one leaf on fire. soon, each leaf in contact wit this first leaf would ignite. Within moments, the single burning leaf had led to an eruption.

Dad would then take his rake and lift some of the still burning leaves from this first pile and begin to place them in various other piles. These transplanted leaves would then ignite these other piles, and soon, every pile was burning...



At the end of the day, there would be leaves that did not burn for various reasons, and we would save them for another time, when they are more ready to catch fire... but for the leaves that were ready, the job was done.



The point being this... if our church is sure to make itself ready to be used, and is accepting of its place in the world, we can ignite our corner of the world... and once that flame is set, God's word tells us that nothing, not Hell itself can overtake us.We must also accept that some leaves are not ready for the ignition, we don't treat them any differently, we just wait...

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