I belong to a wonderful church family at Waters Edge Church and I have met lots of true and sturdy Christian brothers and sisters there. The church is growing very quickly. It is now 6 years old and has an average weekly attendance of about 1200 folks. In the year and a half that I have been attending, the average attendance has increased by about 30%. They just opened their new church home and had over 1900 folks show up on the opening Sunday. However, being a part of this fellowship can leave you blinded or at least myopic as to the world around us. More and more folks are joining the church, it is growing and the word is getting out. This all seems like such good news, and, of course, it is. However, it is well known that there is no guarantee of a man's piousness just because he is a member of the Church. We are all driven, driven to reach after money and stuff, to covet the things and the ways of this world, to oppress and deny and judge. Wars and hate groups and oppression and starvation. The negatives seem to grow and increase exponentially with each passing year. But the statements of growth in the church and the increase of the negative seem to be completely at odds with each other, somehow diametrically opposed with each other, out of phase. A most curious juxtaposition. It seems that the age that we live in is very much like the age that Charles Spurgeon lived in or any other age in the history of man. We need revival, we need understanding, we need each other, and we need true Godliness. This need goes so far beyond words or understanding or zeal. It is in the living of it that we will begin to truly live.(Part 2 of a 2 part series)
