Politics and the Church

I live in a small town just 30 miles south of Kansas City, MO. I go to church about 20 miles away in Overland Park, KS which is the church I attended before I moved to Louisburg.

I have over 20 years of lay ministry experience and am ordained in the Association of Vineyard Churches, USA. Our little weekly newspaper publishes a weekly message by local pastors. I submitted one and the news paper called me to let me know I needed to talk to the leader of the ministerial alliance for their okay. When I talked to the leader of the alliance I was told they had a certain rotation and there was no openings for me to submit a message.

The purpose of my message was to announce a small group for men that I want to start in the community. There are about 55% of the people in our county that do not attend church anywhere and I wanted to provide a safe place for me to gather and talk about dreams, goals and issues they struggle with.

Later I was told by a local young pastor that most pastors in Louisburg did not support the idea of someone attending a church outside our community serving in the community in the capacity of a pastor. At first I was kind of ticked and I am just enough of a rebel to go against the grain.

I attend the Vineyard Church in Overland Park because I received healing for many wounds I had from my experiences growing up. For now I want to serve there as well as in my community.

The pastors who believe that someone cannot serve if they do not attend church in the community probably believes that only ministers are to do ministry and that the body is to just attend and behave.

I believe we are called to be uncivilized and to take risks to reach those who are hurting, who feel rejected and who are addicted. For a good book on this read, "The Barbarian Way" by Erwin Raphael McManus. You can purchase it at ChristianBook.com.

My question for any pastor who feels as those in Louisburg is, "Are any of the people who attend your church from other communities?" For example for Louisburg, do any come from Paola, Cleveland, or any of the other small communities around Louisburg? If so then why encourage them to attend your church when you believe that people should attend in their own community.

Why not encourage people to attend where they are ministered and then to serve along side of you when they can and when the time is right they will come to your church?

I know I am being somewhat of a rebel but our goal as pastors is to encourage minstry to those who do not attend church or even those who do but are not active in serving. Sometimes men will serve in their church after they receive healing for the wounds that they have suffered along the road of life. Along the Road.

I would be interested to hear comments from pastors on this post.