On the Bus

This has been an amazing week. My mentoring group met on Monday and it was phenomenal - lots of learning, encouraging, dreaming. My friend ReNee went home from the hospital (yeah God!). We had a worship planning meeting and have the services outlined from now to Mother's Day (and the series leading up thru Easter will be OFF THE CHAIN!!!) There was a very productive staff meeting on Wed. followed by the anniversary lunch for my 13th year of being the pastor at FBC Pocatello. All of that and getting ready for Sunday - I met with Kevin Pettit (yes, Karl and Dean's brother), a missionary to China, about him speaking at FBC this Sunday, while I am speaking in Acro at Community Baptist. I'm hoping to give Pastor Mike Harris a hand as his church walks through the process of seeking God's vision for what they are supposed to be in their community.

All of those things had me thinking about the church this week. God uses His church to move His agenda forward in the world. He has a plan and a purpose behind it, yet there are falable, imperfect people in the church, even leading the church. How we think about church influences how we act in relationship in the church, so it got me thinking about the church, and I'm going to take the next few posts to talk about one way (out of many, many ways) to look at the church.

The church is like a bus. Connected to the bus are several groups of people, and I'll unpack these as we go, but they are:

• The Tourists
• The Lend-a-handers
• The Backseat Drivers
  
• The Terrorists
• The People at the Bus Stop
• The Bus Driver
• The Bus Company Owner
  

You may guess where these are going, and you may be surprised. When you see yourself, let me know. If you don't, let me know.

Meantime, pray for Arco! :)