The Church Before Erosion

Earlier this Spring my newly sown grass seed got off to a great start.  Planted carefully, watered faithfully;  a week later germination!  I babied my “baby grass.”   No walking on it, no mowing it, this grass needed time to develop and mature.

Then came several days of what my grandpa Ross called “gully washers.”  Guess what that torrential Nebraska rain did to my beautiful stand of tender new grass? It washed it away.  It was gone!  All my careful effort, my patience, and my diligence vanished in just a few days.

Erosion is a good word to describe the kind of things that have and are happening to the church that Jesus built. Various forms of erosion are causing it to look less and less like the original landscape of the kingdom that Jesus said He would build.  And although He promised it would stand against the gates of hell, it often suffers greatly from the erosion caused by the carelessness of humanity.  I wonder what the Savior thinks when His sowing, watering, patient faithfulness and careful diligence are so easily swept away in the current of human neglect?

This lesson begins a section of study in which we will look at some of the Biblical anchor points which should aid in preventing spiritual erosion. We begin by two anti-erosion truths about the church’s original landscape: Its Plan and its Process.