Loyalty is a commodity in short supply in a culture dominated by complete industries dedicated to the task of changing people’s opinions. They aren’t content to simply change the public’s brand loyalties. Their messages sandwiched between snippets of programming may also be designed to create the need for their product in the mind of someone not currently using any such thing. Food, clothing, medicine, professional services, transportation, career, education, recreation; no subject is exempt from attempts to persuade a change of loyalty to their product.

Is it any wonder then that the concept of a deep commitment to one’s home church is nearly nonexistent? Rather than stay with the local church while it struggles through some problem, many with lesser loyalties choose such a moment to shop for some new church to which they can be “fiercely loyal”. Hmmm….   Wouldn’t it make more sense for the person whose childhood was spent in the classrooms and at the altars of the home church to step up to the plate and help their church work through a challenge? Whose church is it anyway? It is God’s church and the Bride of Christ. And each believer gets to be a part of what the Lord is doing in the church where He has planted them.

Sometimes simply staying put and praying is the best we can do for God at that moment.

There is an old saying that has spent time as a refrigerator magnet in many a household: “Bloom Where You Are Planted”. Some Christians have been transplanted so many times; they have never been allowed to establish a root system. Stick with it saint of God!

God bless you as you settle in for the long haul!

Lovingly,

Pastor Rich Orrell