Thought of the Day !!

One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water's edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.
                                              Luke 5:1-3 (NLT)

Jesus’ popularity was growing.  He began his preaching in the synogogues, but then expanded this teaching to the masses.  A similar thing happened to John Wesley, the father of Methodism.  He was heard to say that he much preferred the comfortable surroundings of a church with a pulpit, but it was in the fields where he preached where souls were saved.

Jesus began field preaching so as to save souls as well.  His pulpit was a boat.  This would’ve been a good solution to the crowds pressing in on him.  Preaching from the boat here on the Sea of Galilee with the backdrop of a rising shoreline and a nice easy sloping hill would make a natural amphitheater with very good acoustics. 

The key here for both Jesus and John Wesley was that they understood that often times you have to leave the comfortable surroundings of the church (synagogue) if you want to reach people and make a difference in the world.  Will we take a lesson from them?  Will we be willing to leave the walls of the church and bring the gospel to people outside?  Or will our faith be practiced on Sunday mornings and maybe Wednesday nights when we gather together in the comfortable surroundings of our sanctuaries?

In the love of Christ,
greg