Great Expectations!

William Carey, (1761-1834) English Baptist Missionary, Founder of the Baptist Missionary Society, and known as “The Father of Modern Missions” served the Lord in Serampore, India. His most famous quote, (from a sermon on Isaiah 54:2-3) is, “expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

It is from this quote that I have been meditating on the idea of “Great Expectations!” What exactly do I mean when I say that we, as the people of God, should live our life with Great Expectations?

Recently, I attended a Sunday School leadership training event led by Dale Davenport of IBSA. He gave us some great material including a booklet by David Francis entitled, “Great Expectations.” In this booklet, he lists three things that we ought to see in a “Great Expectations Sunday School”:

First, we should expect new people every week!
Second, we should expect people to say yes!
Third, we should expect classes to reproduce!

I want to springboard off of these ideas and get us thinking about several “Great Expectations” for our Church in the future:

1) We should expect (and be ready for) new people every week!
2) We should expect (and be ready for) God to save lost people every week!
3) We should expect (and be ready for) new believers to be baptized every month!
4) We should expect (and have the process and programs in place for) new members to grow spiritually!
5) We should expect (and have training in place for) spiritually growing members to serve the Lord!
6) We should expect (and provide training) to start new classes and new Ministry Teams continually!
7) We should expect (and be spiritually prepared for) opposition from the evil one and his helpers!

May God grant that we will always be known as “The Great Expectations Church.”