Like a Chicken With its Head Cut Off

"But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head...into Christ." Ephesians 4:15

Sometimes life is busy. Actually...it seems like lately...all the time life is busy.

I have a bit of an anxious spirit growing in me today. Between preaching on May 16 then preaching on May 20, then leading a retreat on the 21st, then trying to wrap up the sheep initiative on May 30 and then boarding a plane for two weeks in Kenya that will both delight me in crush me...I feel like sometimes life is unrelenting.

But here's an image I'm stuck on...sometimes the busyness we feel or experience is unnecessary. Sometimes we are like a Church running with its Head Cut off. I mean that. Sometimes the things we do, commit to, live for and choose are not oriented around Christ as our head like the Bible says.

So if Jesus was removed from your church, would your programming/ministry/way of life in church miss a beat?

How about the Holy Spirit?

Three ways we run with our heads cut off:

We are prayerless.
As pastor Jim preached on Sunday, "where prayer stops, the movement stops" Why is it that our corporate prayer times are populated by a few faithful saints, but our fun/fellowship events explode with people?

We are careless.
We don't love one another with true biblical love. We question each others' motives. We are negative when people bring new ideas or ministries to the table. We become a body divided against itself. Church massochism is far to rampant!

We are Heirless.
We don't invest in future leaders and ministry is dependant on the ones who've always done it doing it the way they've always done it. The sign of a good leader is one who gets the breath of God and doesn't try to pull off the breath of God by his or herself but instead breathes the breath of God into others to make it a reality.

So...is your church running with its head cut off?