On The Rhoads/Brad

This verse was part of my devotions this morning:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23).

I had never noticed before that God calls “justice, mercy and faithfulness” to be “more important matters” than tithing.

We’re going to have to find a new church once we move to Idaho. I’d really like to be part of a church that was a “sending” church for us; that is a church that provides in the neighborhood of 20% of our support. But now I’m going to be looking for a church that emphases the “more important matters”.

I’ve been just walking into churches trying to set up appointments to speak with pastors about our ministry.

I’ve found that a significant number of churches are keeping their doors locked during the week. I understand the reasons – keeping out sales guys (and missionaries?), safety concerns – but it just seems wrong to me.

We shouldn’t lock people out of church. We do that too much already by not accepting people for who they are and where they’re at. We really shouldn’t physically lock people out.

Sure, there’s usually a door bell to ring, but I have a very different impression between the big white AG church I went to and found the doors locked and little Chinese church that had a huge welcome banner over the front door.

Welcome – that should be our message to people, any day of the week.