Church Work

I found myself sitting in the auditorium yesterday being quiet before and talking with the Lord. Often during these times, if I am not careful, I find my mind wandering into the temporal realm thinking about that from which I was seeking to escape. Nothing evil necessarily, but on this occasion given my recent literary escapade into Dan Kimball's work, I allowed my mind to wander and begin considering if that which we spend most of our time doing in "church work" was really what Christ had in mind when he spoke of His "called out assembly." When he declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail of against the onslaught of His church, was He thinking about what we so often spend the bulk of our time doing? When you study the life of Christ, you notice that he spends the bulk of His time in relationships with people that many of us make real estate decisions to avoid. Consider the following quote from Mark Hall, "They are all around us. To become numb to their pain is to become numb to the very heart of God and the suffering of His only Son." I found myself feeling ashamed that although I am in the "ministry." That my schedule has little room for associating with non-Christians. How can I be salt and light when I seldom frequent the places when salt and light is needed? It wasn't always like this, and it is not that I don't like being there, but rather, I have allowed my schedule to squeeze out those times with the ones Christ came to seek and to save. I think we are foolish to think that these folks are going to be breaking down to doors to our churches trying to get to us. But I am probably the only one who feels this way...