Most Important > Important

Last night i had a church council meeting which went until 11pm. Yep... a three and a half hour meeting... that got through half the agenda...

Ironically, i was invited to lead the start-of-the-meeting devotion and did a quick spiel on the first chapter of Haggai. My gist was that God tells the returning exiles to focus on the most important thing (rebuilding the temple) over the important (building nice houses for themselves).

Unfortunately, during the meeting i think we lost the point. Upon reading a piece of heart-breaking correspondence (when i suggested we should stop and pray), we waited until we finished the final few pieces of mail.

As important it was to hear about the various organisations that were plugging their events or asking for support, i think we delayed doing the most important.

I fear the same thing happens all to often in churches. We focus on the "pressing issues" and neglect or delay the vital things that the church is called to do.