And I quote... ( source, internet)
" In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m).
As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.
It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees. "
Now I know that not everything on the net is true, and I don't have time to check whether this is factual or not,It serves the purpose of this blog... And logically makes sense, that ...
If you were to travel a vast distance and be 1 degree off course all the way, the further you travelled then obviously the further you would be away from your desired destination.
I preached this last night at Ringwood... You can listen in at the Ringwood Salvos website link...
www.salvos.org.au/ringwood/
( choose podcast tab option)
But... Suffice to say, what do you do, when you realize you may be off course, not on the right track, heading in the wrong direction ?
What happens in a lot of our lives, and in churches everywhere, is that over time, we seem to waver in our purpose and direction... We seem to stray a little off course. And that can have catastrophic results over time.
Churches lose their way.
Christians start becoming self reliant.
Churches forget the original planted purpose.
Christians get distracted and divided.
We're all guilty.
Jesus said go into all the world, and over time we have stayed in our churches, getting comfortable with our human traditions.
We have guarded them, less anyone new come in and try to change us.
We have believed that the only way to worship God, is our way.
We have held up as a value, that which was only meant to be a tool ....to our God given purpose.
Someone once said to me...we must be careful to protect that which we have, otherwise the people outside of our church will take away our salvationism.
WHAT ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
If we don't have those new people coming in, we will have no Salvation Army anyway.
So...getting off course is easy, but tragically, hard to identify, and even harder to modify.
But if we don't, in our own lives, and in our churches then we are doomed to miss the intended target at our destination.
Just 1 degree off course in your life, and in our churches can have a horrible result. And sadly I think in many cases we already see the results of being off course for a long time now.
We justify our present condition, we defend our tradition, we get angry if it is challenged, and we even fire up if someone should even attempt to speak out against it.
But that doesn't change the course and the fact that we may be off course... The only way to fix or to tweak our navigation is to actually take some steps in the other direction and get back on course.
When people stop praying.
When people find reasons to not be in church.
When people think what we look like is more important than what we do.
When people want to guard the tradition.
When people stop reading their bible.
When people do these things it is choosing to go off course. It leads churches off course. And when churches start programming more than praying, when churches start getting so busy that there is no time left for anything new, when churches start celebrating and guarding the style of worship rather than the one we worship, then you can be sure that over time,that church will get off track, off course, and end up in a terrible dilemma.
So what do you do if you think you might be off course in your life and in your church ?
Turn around quickly.
Start doing some for the basics of the faith again.
Start opposites.
If you are not praying ? Then start praying.
If you look for excuses to not be in church, turn your attitude around.
If you have some habits that are killing you, find someone to walk with you and help you change your habits.
A final test for you( and me)...
Is your church growing ? Yes or no..
Are you growing spiritually ? Personally ? Yes or no.
Has your church seen better days ? Yes or no.
Have you seen better spiritual days ? Yes or no.
Everything we have done in our churches and lives up until now has given us the results we now see. If we want different results in our lives and in our churches, we must change the methods to change the results.
Get back on course.
Help your church get on course.
Pray and seek Gods heart for your circumstance.
And start the new journey, where Jesus is in charge and His purposes are more important than your preferences.
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