Prodigal Friendly

Just got back from our Iowa District Ministers Conference. What a great couple of days. Dary Northrup spoke to us on Monday and Tuesday morning. He is the pastor of a church of 5,000 people in Fort Collins Colorado. He spoke on the prodigal friendly church. He has an amazing story on how God began to transform his church from an insider church to a church that reaches the lost. It all began with a stripper that got saved in one of his services. After she gave her life the Lord, her friends began to attend and some of them got saved and began to attend the church as well. At first, it was messy. Sometimes church folks don't like it when things get messed up. He talked about the struggle the first few years of changing the mindset of how they must welcome the prodigal home and not be like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. I challenge you sometime to read the story and read how the elder brother reacted to his younger brother coming home. It is found in Luke 15 and it is very interesting. Sometimes we can be like the elder brother in the parable. Even in my own life, I have had expectations and thoughts that God has had to crush. The goal of Jesus is to seek and to save that which is lost. God's heart is to see the prodigal come home. The conference reminded me once again how important it is that we keep our focus to reach those that need to come home.