Surf’s up …

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Millions of people live near the coastline that runs along Los Angeles — America’s second largest city — and San Diego, another major metropolitan area. That means during the summer, tens or hundreds of thousands of people flock to the beach to swim, surf, boogie board, and generally roast to a fine California bronze.

Keeping these people safe is a small army of lifeguards … far too small an army for the volume of people they actually have oversight of.

Today I was near Torrey Pines State Park in the San Diego area. The winds were sharp, which were whipping up the waves. There by the road, on a narrow strip of beach, stood a lifeguard tower with a sign prominently displaying the words: “NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY.”

It’s too early in the year for lonely lifeguard stations to be manned, but with the waves up, that meant surfers were in the water. Rough waters. The kind of water you want a lifeguard watching over.

But no one was there.

As I looked at the lifeguard station, I thought about the many millions of lost people who live up and down the California coastline. There is a small army of professional “spiritual lifeguards” who care about the spiritual lives of all those people. Far too few to meet the need. So what if hundreds of thousands, even millions, where equipped to help with the spiritual needs of the people living here?

That’s the idea of the church!

While the church has spiritual leaders who “shepherd” local flocks, the primary responsibility of these leaders is to equip those they watch over to do the work of the church! Look closely at these words from Ephesians 4:11-13, “11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”

Instead of depending on “hired ministers” to share the Gospel, serve the needs of the saints, and the go into the community to make disciples, that responsibility falls to every Christian.

All around you are people drowning in sin. Your home is a lifeguard station. Are you on duty?

Scotty