No threat

2 So David and the six hundred men with him left and went over to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath. 3 David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. 4 When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him. 1 Sam 27:2-4

As a leader this is a very scary and convicting passage for me.

Remember David had not consulted God about going to Gath; he did it trying to secure his own safety. Not only did David go out of God's will, he had probably a couple thousand go with him.

Saul quit looking for him because he was no longer a threat.

To me, and maybe just me, this seems like the "church" today, as leaders we have looked for safety, security, comfort, justification, identity, whatever and gone off on tangents without asking for divine guidance and we are no longer a threat to the evil one.

I now can look back and see where I've done this. Those decisions were not done in rebellion, and at the time I thought I was doing what we should be doing. Remember Satan is the great deceiver and if he can get you just a step or two off the path by the time you realize it you will be miles from the intended destination. You are not confronting evil head on so why should he consider you a threat.

Here's what scares me…how much time and energy do we devote to getting people to follow us, to listen to our teaching, to hear our worship, to grow our church, to come to our experience, to gather and convene at our place?

But aren't these good things?

I was reminded this weekend how good is the enemy of great. Think about this, we spend so much time, energy, and resources trying to keep people coming; so much time creating the experience that we have very little time to disciple people enough to send them out.

What if you were told your small group had one year to get ready to plant a church?

Would your discipleship look different?

We felt certain we were called to Tallahassee to start a movement, not just start a church. The movement is to equip and send.

Can we raise up disciples to be the church where ever they go? Can we raise up leaders who can plant more churches so that our city, our region is transformed by the Gospel?

We have led people to safety, instead of sending them to places where they have to cry out to Christ Jesus; places that would require
His power to do things that are greater than they could ever imagine; places that would require His word to truly saturate their lives; places that would require them to pray like they've never prayed before; places they would have to be fully dependent on Him for their daily bread!

Look in this whole chapter; do you see then word "Lord" or "prayer"? No, they didn't need to cry out because they were safe!

We have led people to something that doesn't require God; all they have to do is show up and settle into just going
to church, settle into a weak Christianity!

We are called to be His witnesses, His ambassadors, His sent ones to our communities, our workplaces, to our homes, to equip them with the expectation that maybe they will be the new band of brothers and sisters that start churches in their neighborhoods to saturate our city with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Does that scare you?

Good, because it scares the crap out of me when I realize I've gotten off the path and been deceived!