Five Question Part 3: Am I Networking?

A church that is socially, culturally and racially diverse.

A church that has a profound influence upon the city.

A church of 1000 active ministers of reconciliation.

A church that touches heaven and impacts earth.

A church where Jesus gets the credit, because Jesus provides the power.

A church of people not seeking recognition but instead a revolution.

A church that feeds the hungry and clothes the naked.

A church that makes welfare obsolete in it's jurisdiction.

A church that places a high value upon the widow and the fatherless.

A church doers of the Word and not just hearers only.

A church of holiness and not hype.

A church of joy and not judgement.

A church of faith and not fear.

A church of triumph, not tradition.

A church of praise and not pretense.

A church prospering and not impoverished.

A church that equips.

A church that empowers.

A church that looks beyond the four walls of a building and instead upon

the walls of men's hearts.

A church ready for the return of Jesus Christ our King.

These are some of the characteristics of the church that I feel that God

is desiring to establish in our city.

A week ago Wednesday, I began a series of messages relating to five

questions that must be asked before the end of the year 2000.

1. Do I have the right attitude towards money?

2. Do I have the utterance to make boldly known the mystery of the Gospel.

The third question in this series of messages is birthed out of something

that I believe the Holy Spirit dropped in my heart (7) years ago and has

continued to bring revelation and refinement in relationship to this

question.

The third question that needs to be asked before the end of the year 2000

is this:

Are we networking?

When Mother Teresa, of Calcutta, was still alive she told the story of a

time when a knock came at her door in the wee hours of the mourning. A man

told her of a family of eight who had not eaten a meal in days. She

quickly rose and filled a sack with rice and went to the house. She said

that when she entered, the faces of the children told the story. They were

not faces of sorrow or anger- but their deep set eyes and swollen stomachs

communicated the ache of hunger. She handed the mother the rice and

instead of immediately preparing a meal for her family, she instead

carefully divided it into two equal portions and walked out the door with

one of the portions. When she arrived back, Mother Teresa asked her where

she had gone. Her response was, my neighbors are hungry also.

In a day and age where the term "networking" is thrown about as a way to

obtain business "contacts" or a means in which to advance ones own

position or ideology; the term has been stolen from the church and has

become lost to it's purest definition.

net-work (netwurk) n. [[NET1 + WORK]] 1 any arrangement or fabric of

parallel wires, threads, etc. crossed at regular intervals by others

fastened to them.2 a group, system, etc. of interconnected or cooperating

individuals

How many of you are connected to the internet. One of the primary useages

of the internet was for the distribution of information between colleges

and universities. It was utilized as a way to link together think tanks in

order to allow knowledge to better better employed. This www effectively

laid the parallel lines that would be fastened together at intervals

called universities.

Now you can sit in your own home and summon literally billions of files of

information of millions of subjects because a network was established.

I can simultaneously talk with my sister in Arizona, and friends in

Calfiornia, North Carolina, Ohio and abroad all on this network.

Eph 2:19-22 "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners,

but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus

Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building,

being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you

also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

(NKJ)

God has established a network of parralel lines within the body of Christ

that serve to unite His church unto a common cause of reaching a world for

the Gospel and becoming the Bride (singular) of Christ. He has one Bride

Gal 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,

there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

(KJV)

Question: How many of you are like me and think that Dayspring is a pretty