Worshipping Mission Community

Haggai chapter one makes serious reading for those who don't want to embark on that church building project. Just check out verse 4. Then there's the link to poor harvest: verse 6. Of course this irks me somewhat, since I think on the whole we need to sit much lighter with our buildings than we are typically inclined to do.

Is it possible that this passage might speak into some of our situations of seemingly low harvest yield in our outreach initiatives, i.e. with very few people coming to faith?

If it does, then I'm sure the answer is not necessarily to build yet more church buildings and just expect people to come. No, there is surely a deeper principle at work here.

The temple was a spiritual focus and centre of worship for the Israelites. Whilst worship did continue in the ruined premises left by the Babylonians, it would appear that the returning exiles were more concerned with getting their own houses in order than their depth of worship together. The physical buildings and quality of their restoration (or lack thereof) was an outward sign of deeper spiritual realities.

So as a community of faithful, hoping to serve God's Kingdom purposes out in the world, we must not neglect our gathering together for worship - coming afresh before God to exalt Him, re-assert our dependence on Him, and receive anew from the riches of His grace. We need to put the necessary work in to make this a fitting and genuine experience. Not to the exclusion of our outward mission (so many congregations seem to make that mistake ...), but integral to it.

Haggai goes on to talk of 'shaking the nations' in his second chapter. This link with acceptable and worthy worship of the community of faithful continues through the book therefore, with the full potential of far reaching consequences.