back to articles MAGNIFYING GLASS AND FIRES Jerry Steingard During this time of change and transition at Gateway Harvest Fellowship, it can be an emotionally mixed bag, a bit disorienting for most of us. For example, if your house church meets during the week, not Sunday mornings, and you wake up on a Sunday morning, you could be feeling really strange as to what you should be doing that day! For many of us, it has been a habit, a godly habit all our lives, of getting dressed and going to church to worship the Lord with others of like faith. Now what do we do? Recently, the Lord spoke to me about the use of the magnifying glass. Yes, it enlarges things so you can see things more clearly and in more detail and we are to “magnify the Lord“ and let people see Him up close and in detail. But the Lord reminded me that a magnifying glass can also be used to focus the sun’s rays through the glass to start fires (remember doing that as a kid and probably frying up an insect or two?). The Lord said to me that we have the choice before us of getting more “intentional, more purposeful, more focused”, allowing God’s saving & healing light and grace to be shone through us more fully to touch others. As we did so we would see some amazing fires ignited in the days ahead! For example, remember my picture of “building the house of the Lord” and the needed ingredients of : Truth, Relationship, and Mission at each level? 4rd floor: To the Nations (short-term missions etc, yearly?!) 3nd floor: City-wide Church, & Regional (eg. TACF Conferences) (quarterly?) 2nd floor: Celebrations of our Network of House Churches (Gateway:2 times monthly) 1st floor: House church, one on one friendship, discipleship (weekly) Basement: Personal walk with God, Marriage, Family (daily) We need to be investing first of all into our own relationship with God, our marriage, and family. This is the basement, the foundation for everything else. Then we build on that foundation in terms of priority to a small band of other Christians (House church) and friends, followed by our Network of House Churches, City-wide church and inter-church (eg. TACF and Partners in Harvest), and ultimately to the nations in a commitment to the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. So, rather than finding yourself disoriented and confused about what to do with yourself on Sundays (and maybe feeling guilty that you are not in church), ask Father God what He would want you to do. Maybe spending one Sunday with some quality time with Him on a hike, or your spouse and/or family is just what the Lord would want you to do. Or He may prompt you to arrange to have the neighbours over for brunch or lunch (I‘ve often felt bad driving off to church on a Sunday morning while seeing my neighbours finally relaxing around their yard and ready for my social interaction). Or go volunteer to help at the chapel service at a homeless shelter, or go visit and bless one of the other churches in your city. Pray about this and with a sense of fun, faith, and adventure, purposefully plan them into your calendar. As we get more Kingdom focused in the days ahead (like a magnifying glass), we are gonna see more Kingdom fires break out! Jerry S.