Will you do something great?

I have been read­ing John Maxwell’s Every­one Com­mu­ni­cates, Few Con­nect which is a book I highly rec­om­mend.  In my read­ing today I came across the fol­low­ing pas­sage I wanted to share with you all.

“Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln, an incred­i­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tor, was known dur­ing the Civil War to attend a church not far from the White House on Wednes­day nights.  The preacher, Dr. Gur­ley, allowed the pres­i­dent to sit in the pastor’s study with the door open to the chan­cel so he could lis­ten to the ser­mon with­out hav­ing to inter­act with the crowd.

One Wednes­day evening Lin­coln and a com­pan­ion walked back to the White House after the ser­mon, the president’s com­pan­ion asked, “What did you think of tonight’s sermon?”

“Well” Lin­coln responded, “it was bril­liantly con­ceived, bib­li­cal, rel­e­vant, and well presented.”

“So it was a great ser­mon?” his com­pan­ion asked

“No” Lin­coln replied. “It failed.  It failed because, Dr. Gur­ley did not ask us to do some­thing great.”

That pas­sage to me sums up the bulk of preach­ing I have heard over a life­time and I feel unfor­tu­nately sums up most of the preach­ing I do (although I would say I am rarely bril­liant despite my desire to be rel­e­vant, bib­li­cal, and well presented).

This hits me hard because I firmly believe God cre­ated us for some­thing great, for great things, for things that Jesus promised would be even greater than what He saw or did while He was on earth.  Yet rarely are we asked to attempt great things or dare to do so.  Even this past week I preached on the impor­tance of being a mis­sion­ary to the peo­ple God has placed us among I feel I failed to call Marsh Creek Church to do some­thing great, some­thing epic, some­thing that will change the world.

To those who com­mu­ni­cate for a liv­ing, or even reg­u­larly in your daily life, what great thing are you chal­leng­ing those around you to do?  For me the gaunt­let has been thrown down.  Because I believe the Church should be the place where the great­est things in our lives are con­ceived.  Where lives are inspired to make dreams become real­ity.  Because we are loved by a God who empow­ers us to live the bless­ing of life He has given us to it’s fullest.

So now I ask you all to do some­thing great, the only thing that will impact a life for eter­nity.  Will you be will­ing to share your faith with some­one who God has placed in your life so that they have the oppor­tu­nity to know the God who loves them, for­gave them, and saved them for eter­nity so they could be loved, and know His presence.

I was just quoted a stag­ger­ing stat yes­ter­day by a good friend.  That 95% of peo­ple who come to know Jesus per­son­ally do so because of a per­sonal rela­tion­ship.  So Church ser­vices, evan­ge­lis­tic events, con­certs, etc. only account for 5%.  You are the X fac­tor, the dif­fer­ence maker, the one empow­ered by God to do great things for the glory of His King­dom.
I would argue that the great­est thing that can be done in life is to impact a life for the great­est pos­si­ble good.  You are sur­rounded by lives you have the oppor­tu­nity to impact.  Will you do some­thing great?