I’m reading Eugene Peterson’s latest book, Practice Resurrection. In it he tells about growing up in Montana and each Sunday worshiping with his family in a weather beaten little wood church out in the middle of nowhere.

He told about when pastors would walk into the pulpit and paint for him a picture of how beautiful the church is to God, that he would suddenly feel like he was in the most beautiful building in the world, even though the bottom of the front door was starting to rot out.

And yet, he went on to say, each one of these pastors would leave in two years or so, telling him and the congregation, that they just didn’t think there was much there.

I love how Peterson paints these two visions of the same church and it sets before me a challenge of how I’m going to look at Apple Grove and Yellowstone.

From the perspective of God and the Bible, I look at the two churches and I see the beautiful bride of Christ. Called to gather each week to praise God and unite together to play our part in expanding nothing less than the very Kingdom of God

When I look at it from an earthly perspective, I see two congregations that need some nails and some putty, and I see a community that needs more than that. I see two churches that aren’t going to shatter attendance records, nor put me on the cover of Outreach magazine as a pastor of one of the hundred fastest growing congregations in the United States. And from this perspective I begin to wonder, like Peterson’s pastors of long ago, if there is really much here and therefore much to stick around for.

Same church two visions. Which vision is going to guide our ministry today?

God bless, Dan