I'm at a leadership seminar this week in Indianapolis and one of the speakers, Dary Northrop, of Timberline Church, spoke about the fact that it gets really messy when you are reaching people for Christ.
He told the story about this woman stripper who got saved in his church. He explained that on her first Sunday in church she was not exactly wearing "church clothes" and despite that fact, the Lord touched her heart and she gave her life to Jesus.
He reminded us of the story of the Prodigal son and the fact that if he would have ran into the elder brother first he would have never made it back into the father's house. Unfortunately, too many of our churches display the spirit of the elder brother. We want everyone to clean up their life before we welcome them in the church.
Our heavenly father calls us to love EVERYONE. Dary challenged us to love people before they change or clean up their life. That was worth the entire trip this week!
