Verse 20-21 "Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I amy build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written 'Those who have been told of him shall see, and those who have heard of him shall understand.'"
It's an intersting time to be the church. I don't think we really have a unified identity as the Christian Church in America... we are all over the map. Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, and non-denominational congregations all have little in common, except that they claim to be Christian. And they have all grown by adding other christians.
Abiding Grace, the congregation where I serve has grown very quickly since we had our first worship 11 months ago... but we have grown by adding christians from other churches. The same is true for most churches.
Why? Because we haven't been very good doing what Paul did, finding people that have never heard about Jesus and preaching the gospel to them.
Because every one in America has heard about Jesus already.
We have a new challenge. Witnessing to people who have already heard about Jesus and have not been impressed.
For whatever reason people have been turned off by the church and walked away from it and God at the same time, thinking the two are the same.
Paul didn't want to build on a foundation built by others. In many cases we need to rebuild the foundation...
It's a good time to be the church, it's a good time to be encouraged.
There is a lot of re-building to do.
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